


Shot at the Night

by berryboys



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Comedy, Fluff, M/M, Spider-Man - Freeform, Spider-Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2019-11-08 09:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17978864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryboys/pseuds/berryboys
Summary: One month into the superhero life and Jeno realizes he has been scammed. His sleeping schedule? Non-existent. His social life? Dead, but it wasn’t very alive to begin with. His crush on Huang Renjun? He better forget about it.





	1. Welcome to Fabulous Earth-616

**Author's Note:**

> This was just another excuse to write another superhero fic just because I wanted nct dream to be spidermen, and I couldn't choose just one, so why not every one of them? That's right.
> 
>  
> 
> +I believe this can be read without any knowledge in spiderman; in fact, this little explanation is for those who actually know a bit about the spiderverse, so that they dont start reading and think I went crazy: this takes place in an alternative "canon" in which morlun manages to wipe out every Spider-Man from every universe. Spider-Men are dead, they've become a commercial figure, and their stories aren't told as they should be told, etc etc etc. Then Dreamies happen.

Jeno is a normal boy, until he isn’t.

And, contrary to what Jeno has always believed, becoming a superhero isn’t an adventure that changes his life for the better. Having powers, saving people, being admired, and most important, not having to go to college – because superheroes don’t need a side job, do they? – looked like a paradise. Except all that was Jeno’s fantasies.

One month into the superhero life and Jeno realizes he has been scammed. The list of his problems keeps growing at an alarming rate, and he doesn’t have a proper hold of his own powers to fix all those problems.  First of all, he can’t drop out of college, because apparently the justice system doesn’t pay superheroes for catching criminals.

His sleeping schedule? Non-existent. His social life? Dead, but it wasn’t very alive to begin with. His crush on Huang Renjun? He better forget about it, because he doesn’t have time for dates – and anyway, why would Renjun date a guy with spider powers? It’s weird. Spiders are the grossest type of arthropods.

The real irony of Jeno’s life is that he’s terrified of spiders. Not merely terrified. If there is a spider in his room, he grabs his sheets and pillow and drags them to the living room, because sleeping on the couch is a better option than sharing a room with a damn spider.

He can’t escape from himself, however.  And believe him, he’s trying.

 

 

 

 

Jeno’s story goes like this:

He meets a pretty guy on his second college party. A fratboy, actually, but Jeno isn’t judgmental and believes that everyone deserves a chance in life. Especially if they have _those_ lips. His name is Wong Yukhei, and he has big hands that cup Jeno’s face with a delicacy that doesn’t seem characteristic of them. Yukhei is a good kisser; Jeno, not that much, but he knows the basics. He feels lucky that a guy like Yukhei would choose him among the dozens of pretty boys in a frat party, but some people have bad taste, and Jeno isn’t going to redirect Yukhei’s taste against him.

Jeno isn’t the type of boy that ends up making out with a stranger in their bedroom, which should be a sign of the universe not to do exactly that with Yukhei. Yet he does, perhaps because all his blood has abandoned his brain, and Yukhei, though quite clumsy with his flirting techniques, is very convincing with his tongue.

Five minutes after entering Yukhei’s bedroom, Jeno manages to break from Yukhei’s hypnosis and checks out the place. The first and only terrible realization is that Yukhei has spiders in his room. Not by accident. He has several transparent boxes that work as a habitat for his goddamn pets, all carefully tagged and placed, as if it’s a secret zoology laboratory.

You see, Jeno knows the drill. Someone with that face, those arms and the deepest voice he has ever heard in a 20-year-old has to hide a secret enormous flaw. In Yukhei’s case, that flaw is loving spiders. It could have been being a Backstreet Boys’ fan, or liking Marvel movies, or worse, being a heterosexual guy experimenting with his sexuality in college. But it was _spiders_ , which in the end is a cruel revenge of the world on Jeno, because the world surely must hate him to not let him enjoy Yukhei’s mouth in peace.

They make out, Jeno jokes that he can’t stand spiders – and hopes for Yukhei to see the fear in his eyes and notice that it’s not a joke – and Yukhei decides that it’s funny to liberate some of them. It’s just natural for Jeno to panic, except his panicking reaction is being petrified and closing his eyes, and Yukhei laughs and laughs and laughs.

It’s a nightmare, but Jeno isn’t dreaming, and his only distraction is Yukhei’s lips on him. Yukhei kisses up and down his neck and leaves a hickey over his collarbone that will last for a whole month, yet that’s not the only mark he acquires that night.

And Jeno learns, much later, that Yukhei did it on purpose.

 

 

 

 

“We don’t have that on the menu,” Renjun says with a tiny, sweet laugh. “But I can pour some vodka in the smoothie for you. You look like that would help you.”

This is what not sleeping for three days on a row does to a human – not to a human, a Spider-Man, to be precise. Jeno isn’t expecting Renjun to attend him, because even though Jeno frequents this diner with excessive pink decoration everywhere for Renjun and Renjun only, Renjun doesn’t take care of the table number fourteen, aka Jeno’s favorite table. He strategically chose this table long ago, for it’s the place from where he has a perfect view of Renjun walking around the tables and smiling to the customers, but he doesn’t have to interact with him.

But tonight the staff seems to be drowned in an awfully evident lack of waiters, and Renjun gets assigned to Jeno’s precious, calm table. When Renjun strolls up to him, a pen and a pink notebook in hand (“Have you decided your order?” Renjun asks, as polite as ever), Jeno keeps his head down, not recognizing his voice.

“I’d like to die,” Jeno answers, because he hasn’t slept in three days and his brain doesn’t remember social norms or how not to make your crush think you’re a weird, antsy teen that can’t mature fast enough to confront life.

And most important, because Jeno is a fool.

As soon as Renjun replies and laughs, however, Jeno flickers his head up in terror. Renjun often laughs when he’s attending other customers, so Jeno wouldn’t mistake his laughter for anyone else’s, but in that instant he wishes he had never heard it. Renjun’s amusement reaches his eyes, and it’s the first time Jeno sees him from up close, so pretty, so breathtaking. It’s shocking that, despite his ridiculously pink uniform and those pointed hats they wear, Jeno is whipped enough to think that Renjun looks good.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine. You should see what some guys ask around here,” Renjun interrupts him, lips stretching into a wider smile. He taps his pen on the notebook, though his impatience doesn’t show through, and tilts his head, “You up for that offer?”

Vodka in his smoothie. Perhaps not the best idea when he hasn’t rested in three days. Perhaps the best idea to finally sleep.

“Have you tried?” Jeno asks, curious.

He wouldn’t have deemed Renjun as the type of person that throws alcohol in his smoothies, but then again, he doesn’t know him at all.

“No, but someone has to go first, right?” Renjun reasons.

Being honest with himself, Renjun could serve him ethyl chloride and Jeno would drink it all. Every superhero has a weakness, anyhow, and Jeno tries not to feel too guilty about his. Every superhero also has a romantic interest, though they often end up dead and Jeno is one hundred percent sure that his feelings should be returned to consider Renjun a romantic interest to begin with.

It doesn’t matter, right? This is his story. He’s the first Spider-Man after fifty years since the last one died. He should be allowed to crush on this pretty, unattainable waiter that is disposed to alcoholize him.

“Vodka in my smoothie, sure,” Jeno accepts, already feeling a bit drunk. Drunk on Renjun’s eyes and his smile and _wow it’s the first time we talk to each other?_ “An Oreo smoothie.”

Renjun doesn’t write his order down, but he sends him a cheerful, “Coming up your way, Mr. Vodka.”

Jeno huffs a laugh. “It’s Jeno.”

It’s not Jeno’s imagination: Renjun says his name in a whisper first, like tasting it on his tongue, and then confirms out loud, “Jeno, then.”

Jeno just hopes Renjun doesn’t end up dead.

 

 

 

 

Jeno isn’t the best Spider-Man that has ever existed, that’s an obviousness. But it isn’t entirely his fault, because as sad as it sounds, he is alone in this journey.

There aren’t any manuals for superheroes, and less for a new Spider-Man. Jeno has done his research, but throughout the years, the only information that prevails about the last Spider-Man of his universe is a bunch of comics, movies, and other innumerable adaptations that don’t have any real link to reality. At least, to Jeno’s reality.

When he reached the conclusion that he had spider powers, he watched all the movies, the three different trilogies with very varying quality. It was hard to relate to them. Jeno’s life isn’t that dramatic – for his loved ones are alive – that comical or simply that interesting. He doesn’t have any villain to fight, which should be a relief, because Jeno is far from ready to confront an attack, and how pathetic would he be if he died in his first confrontation as Spider-Man? He would make history, and not the sort of history he wants to make.

(Which, by the way, is a recent wish of his, for teen Jeno always wished to have a normal, boring life; a house, a good job, a pretty husband, and even kids. But it’s these powers, these damn spider powers what influence his perfect vision of the future, and now he dreams of being a decent superhero and saving people and being _relevant_ ).

Jeno’s lack of experience and overall his lack of guidance are what put him in danger that night. He isn’t a heavy drinker, and Renjun serves him enough smoothies for the vodka to affect him, laughing at his rosy cheeks when he approaches Jeno for the last time. _I think that’s enough for today_ , Renjun says, and Jeno agrees, but he wishes he could stay for a little longer, because Renjun looks even prettier after a few drinks and Jeno feels even lonelier.

The first lesson that Jeno learns when he leaves the diner is that alcohol isn’t good for his spider sense, and as usual not for his sense of directions either. Instead of taking the bus, he decides that it’s better to take a shortcut so that he’ll be at home in a matter of minutes, which is a faulty reasoning since he moves at the speed of a turtle.

The second lesson is that superheroes have to avoid dark alleys. It’s the most cliché place for a victim to be attacked, and as most superheroes clichés, it has a solid base to exist. But Jeno is too drunk, too sad, and he doesn’t realize where he is until a shadow surges in front of him. A shadow that grows bigger and bigger, unfolding from the ground, until Jeno has a man in front of him, long black hair, shoulders four times the width of Jeno’s shoulders, and the ugliest face he has ever seen. The head to shoulders proportion is pretty disturbing, a detail that seems to be very important in this moment of drunkenness.

His spider sense didn’t warn him of the danger, so Jeno thinks that he’s either having hallucinations or that this man is a regular citizen. He looks a lot like the Morlun that Jeno has seen in comics, though? And that’s odd, if you ask him, because Morlun isn’t human sized and the possibilities of a human being this big are little to none.

“Spider-Man,” the creature says, voice deep and mocking. “Your return didn’t last for long.”

Shit, Jeno thinks as he steps back without any decent balance, that is Morlun. Maybe Jeno is about to get eaten after all, unless Morlun isn’t the horrible vampire-like creature Jeno has read about. That seems unlikely right now, however, as Jeno blinks up at the responsible for the extermination of all Spider-Men.

Who did Jeno think he was to take the position of a historical superhero? He could never live up to them, and now it seems evident that he can’t even _live_ for long enough. There isn’t much a boy like him can do against the villain that killed very experienced Spider-Men across all the universes.

“Hey!” a voice screams from behind Morlun. No, not behind, Jeno realizes, but from the terrace of the building on his right. “You got the wrong person!”

Jeno wants to laugh, because when he follows the voice, he finds a tiny human dressing up as Spider-Man perched on the edge of the terrace. That’s a pretty horrible version of the suit, in Jeno’s opinion, because the blue patches are too clear and the red looks worn away even in the darkness.

“The wrong person?” Morlun begins, looking between them like he can’t believe his own eyes. His frown deepens, and Jeno wonders for a moment if Morlun is about to fall into this obvious trap.

Jeno isn’t _this_ stupid. When Morlun looks back at the fake Spider-Man, Jeno sees his chance to escape, and that’s exactly what he does. His main disadvantage is that it’s pretty hard to run away in a straight line when he’s drunk, and that once he has started, it’s too late to regret it. He doesn’t need to look back to know that Morlun is chasing him, and when he attempts to shoot a web to one of the buildings, his powers don’t respond.

Jeno might have said this a hundred times by now in his life, but this time he means it: he’s never drinking alcohol again. And that’s an useless promise – like it has been every time he has sworn this before – because he’s about to die. Such a sad ending, drunk, moping over a stupid crush, and getting killed the first time he encounters a villain. He hopes his parents never get to know that he was Spider-Man.

And then, Jeno is _flying_.

For a few seconds, Jeno is sure that Morlun has caught him and he’s flying in his clutches. He’s wrong, however, because whoever has captured him has linked a spiderweb to the skyscraper across the street and is strong enough to hold Jeno with only one arm. Jeno doesn’t want to mistrust them so early, but if he dies from a free fall instead of being murdered by Morlun, he will never forgive them for this.

Jeno is too drunk to calculate for how long they escape from Morlun, or to understand what’s happening when they land on a terrace and the other Spider-Man lets Jeno roll over the floor like a sack of potatoes. The scary part of the situation isn’t that Jeno might not be the only Spider-Man of this era, but that there’s a strange portal of energy floating in the terrace, like a little sun that will blind him if he looks at it for long enough.

And Jeno is familiar with those portals. He has seen them in comics, tightly related to parallel universes, and especially related to Morlun’s storyline. He knows where his own storyline is going.

“No,” he cries out, trying to get up by himself. “I can’t leave this Earth.”

The other Spider-Man turns to stare at him, blatant annoyance in his eyes. “Morlun found you,” he reminds him, as if they hadn’t just crossed half of the city while Jeno screamed his lungs out. “This Earth isn’t safe anymore.”

This can’t be happening. Not to Jeno. He has been a Spider-Man for one month, and he feels like a lost lamb in the middle of a forest fire. Fuck Yukhei and his spiders and his big nice hands. Jeno wanted to have a normal life, he didn’t choose this, and it isn’t fair that there’s still an ancient vampire feeding on Spider-Men. And it isn’t fair that he made out with a pretty boy and got his life ruined because of it. This is the simile of having sex once and getting pregnant. Jeno is supposed to start by fighting easy villains, not the villain that has killed half of the superheroes from any Earth and Era ever.

“All my family is here! My friends!” Jeno protests, moving away from the portal and holding his arms up in self-protection.

When the other Spider-Man laughs out loud, it’s pretty clear that Jeno’s life is over. It’s not a happy laugh, but it’s a laugh that Jeno knows from the bottom of his heart. He feels his own blood freeze, adrenaline rushing through his body like venom; another glance at the Spider-Man’s eyes is enough proof to confirm his suspicions.

The next thing that Jeno processes is that Huang Renjun is shoving him into the portal.

 

 

 

 

Jeno shouldn’t have any right to complain.

He supposed the superhero life had to be interesting, but considering the record of other superheroes, he should have guessed that interesting equaled to miserable.

This is another level of misery, however, because the mirage of his crush is broken as he finds out that Renjun isn't a cute waiter that flirts with him because he likes him, but a cute waiter that is secretly a superhero and that has been baiting him with mischievous glances just so that Jeno kept going to the diner. Renjun wasn't flattered at the attention: he just wanted to have an eye on the other Spider-Man who he had discovered.

Renjun crosses the portal after him, and then he pulls out a tiny item from behind his ear, a round metallic ball with a button; pressing his index finger on it, the portal disappears in the blink of an eye, an absorbing sound resonating in the house.

Jeno doesn't keep his mouth close at first, at least not until Renjun shoots a web over his lips. Jeno struggles to remove it, pathetically whining, but by the time Renjun is carrying him with one arm again, Jeno has given up on convincing him that he should have the freedom to choose if he wants to be kidnapped for his own good or not. Renjun doesn't care, that's for sure.

Jeno is waiting for Renjun to show him some sort of hideaway. A superhero hideaway. But Renjun brings him to a tidy, small apartment that has nothing but a lot of books and notes tucked in perfect piles. Jeno hopes it belongs to him, that he isn't trespassing, even if the concept of Renjun being a student like him is foreign.

When Jeno sits on the couch, he doesn't feel that drunk anymore. Nothing like a good rush of adrenaline to make his body function again. He would have loved it if the adrenaline rush was because he was in a room alone with Huang Renjun, in other circumstances, perhaps with some red candles and a stupid romantic movie that they would ignore.

“You didn't have to be so stubborn,” is the first complaint Renjun throws at him, removing his mask with a groan. His blond hair sticks everywhere before shaping back to its usual form; Renjun frowns at him, which is a first, and it results much more intimidating than Jeno had expected given Renjun’s size and his cute face. “We could have been much faster, and against Morlun we can't afford wasting time.”

Jeno blinks up at him, confused, watching Renjun go back and forth as he gets rid of his suit bit by bit. From up close, Jeno can tell that the suit isn't worn out, it's just that it has tiny spider webs all over it to help Renjun stick to walls with other parts of his body. Genius. 

“I need some explanations,” Jeno dares to say, voice coming out raspy. Because he does. He doesn't understand a single thing: why are there more Spider-Men? How did Renjun know that Jeno was one? How did Morlun find him? But there is a question, a very desperate question on the tip of Jeno's tongue, that wins the game and betrays him, “You don't belong to my Earth?”

Renjun stops on his tracks to look at him, eyebrows raised. It's scary that he can read Jeno's thoughts by just analyzing a simple sentence, because yes, Jeno is worried about the fact that if they belong to different Earths, he won't see Renjun again. Renjun must think that he’s the stupidest boy of any universe.

“I do belong to your Earth,” Renjun confirms, however. He rolls his eyes upon noticing the way Jeno's shoulders slump down, calmness taking over him. “But I knew Morlun could come back, so I've been working on the portals for a while. I found this Earth a few months ago, and it just so happens that the Renjun version that lives here has exactly the same life I do, the same friends, _everything_. It'd my life if I had never become Spider-Man.”

Jeno glances around. Renjun lives in this apartment, but on their Earth, and that means that he must be indeed a student. If anything, Jeno is impressed that he has traveled enough across universes to have found a perfect version of his life on other Earth, and even more impressed that Renjun has managed to create portals himself.

Jeno clears his throat, trying not to crumble under Renjun's attention. “And we're here because-?”

“Because I can switch places with this Renjun, and we can hide in this Earth while we figure out-” Renjun shrugs. “I don't know, how not to die? I haven't thought beyond just staying alive.”

That makes sense, but it also implies that Renjun has his life covered on the other Earth and he will be able to return whenever he wants to. Jeno, on the contrary, has to fulfill his duties there - attending classes, not being dead to his friends and family, paying rent - so vanishing from thin air isn't a viable option.

He stands up, legs trembling, and observes, “What about my life on my Earth?”

Perhaps because Jeno is altered, Renjun draws closer and settles his hands on his shoulders, pushing him down. Jeno obeys, staring into Renjun's eyes as he forces him on the couch, but he doesn’t recognize any sign of pity in Renjun’s semblance. Renjun is tougher than him, which isn’t a difficult achievement to begin with, and Jeno doesn’t need him to be tough. He can predict that this is going to be tough enough as it is.

“Jeno, there's no life for you there right now,” Renjun assures him, so serious that Jeno can't protest. “I'm not saying we'll never live there again, but Morlun isn't a joke, and if you go back you'll die.”

There Jeno has it: a superhero story. It doesn't feel as nice as he imagined.

Renjun excuses himself, leaving Jeno alone in the living room, but he isn't gone for long. Jeno leans back on the couch and closes his eyes in an attempt to calm himself down. The silence allows him to take in that he almost _died_. He can't undo death, and Renjun is right, this problem deserves proper attention and seriousness. It’s a fight of how much he values his life style versus how much he values the mere fact of being alive.

Renjun has left to change clothes, because when he enters the living room he's wearing a blue jumper and tight jeans, looking much younger than he does at the diner. He carries the same confidence, however, and Jeno tries not to be upset at the fact that Renjun doesn't fear him at all. Now there are two persons in the world that know about Jeno’s powers, and none of them look at Jeno with the respect that a superhero deserves. Jeno reckons that he hasn’t earned that privilege yet.

Accommodating himself next to Jeno, Renjun places a hand on his thigh to catch his attention. Renjun wouldn't need physical contact for Jeno to orbit around him, but Jeno is never disclosing that. Renjun is visibly more relaxed, aware that they're safe and that Jeno won't bolt out unless he intends to die.

“How did you convert?” Renjun questions him.

See, Jeno hasn't prepared for this. Whilst keeping his powers a secret, he never had to explain the origin to anyone, and it's a story that no superhero should ever have as the beginning. Since he believed he would never have to relate his story, Jeno hasn't invented an alternative not to embarrass himself.

Nervously laughing, Jeno mutters, “It wasn't a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Renjun mimics him. He angles his head to inspect Jeno's face, and then a terrible smile blooms on his lips, those smiles that evil kids have before setting something on fire. “It was Yukhei, wasn't it?”

A wave of heat invades Jeno, so strong that he fears he will burn himself.

“Fuck, how do you know-”

“Well, well, look at what we have here,” Renjun cuts in, not allowing him to reply. Jeno's blushing cheeks is the answer, anyway. Even though Renjun is being mean on purpose and having fun, he fakes a pout and whines, “I thought you had an insufferable crush on me, but it turns out that you go around making out with other boys.”

Jeno presses his lips together, repressing the urge to defend himself. It would be weird to defend that he has a crush on him, at least after discovering that Renjun isn't who he thought he was. God, it sucks. Renjun still looks like a very kissable option regardless, but it's clear that he’d torture Jeno for being a foolish romantic.

Upon mulling over Renjun’s words though, Jeno falls into realization. “Wait, you _know_ him too,” he points out. The moment he mentions it, regret invades him, because the mental image of Renjun and Yukhei together is a strong blow to his pride. “So you-”

Renjun's smile fades away. Jeno feels his own heart accelerating.

“He kisses well, huh?” Renjun whispers, voice dropping low. Conscious that Renjun is toying with him, Jeno suffers not to glance at his lips, but he ends up gazing at them anyhow. It's hard not to. “But I can assure you I kiss better.”

Jeno isn't ready for this. First, because Renjun is dangerous. Not because Renjun could kill him, or because Jeno is in his apartment in an Earth he doesn't belong to, kidnapped against his will, but because someone with those lips can ruin anyone's life. Second, because Jeno is weak, lives in his own head – his own fantasies – and he would let Renjun break him once and once again just to have a fun time with him every time.

That's the reason Jeno lets out an awkward laugh and stutters, “This is completely out of place and-”

“You're right,” Renjun agrees, interrupting him. And even if the reply is positive, Jeno has a bad hunch, because Renjun leans closer over the couch, diversion in his eyes. “Superheroes don't get it on with other superheroes, but with damsels in distress, don't they? Except, you know...” Renjun trails off, waiting for Jeno to finish his sentence. The thing is, Jeno has no idea what Renjun is referring to, and so he shakes his head in deny. Renjun is very glad to finish with a, “There was an Earth in which Spider-Man and Deadpool were married.”

 

 

 

 

Among all the reasons to be in Renjun's bed, hiding away from an exterminating creature was the last one Jeno ever imagined.

Because yes, he imagined that one too, after he ran out of all the vomit-inducing, romantic, movie-like options he had played in his head a hundred times. This is perhaps embarrassing, but Jeno's brain wanders to wonderful lands if he lets go, and he has allowed himself to dream about Renjun a hundred times. The difference is that in his dreams, Jeno found refuge in Renjun's house because Renjun was a sweet, deer caught in headlights boy that couldn't let him die, with his big innocent eyes, stuttering as he asked about Jeno's powers. In awe, too, if Jeno was being picky that day.

And for sure, in his fantasies Renjun didn't kick him in his sleep, but the real Renjun does, so hard that Jeno wakes up hissing and not feeling anything except the pain in his leg.

Jeno doesn't deserve better, anyhow. Renjun isn't going to stutter or ask about his powers, because he has been a Spider-Man for much longer than Jeno has been. But Jeno needed guidance, didn't he? And Renjun can give it to him. Plus, he's still pretty, and it’s not the first time Jeno likes someone that is too mean for his own good.

“You eat like an animal,” Renjun points out during breakfast, a bowl full of ugly lasagna that was in the fridge. However, it tastes like heaven, and neither of them has recovered from last night's adventures, so Jeno just tries to feed Renjun a spoon. Renjun, who is sitting next to him, flinches away with a glower. “Gross. Too soon to share saliva.”

Offended by the rejection, Jeno grumbles, “You didn't seem to think that last night.”

“You were drunk, so your judgment and memories are clearly clouded.” Renjun merely smiles at him when Jeno glances at him with skepticism, because both know that Renjun flirted with him and he was far from shameful about it. Then, propping his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, Renjun sighs, “It's nice not to be alone in this.”

It's an unexpected statement, yet Renjun is very serious about it.

“I have to agree,” Jeno confesses. God, being a superhero is lonely, especially when you know your race is done for good, and moreso when you can't control your own powers. “What are we going to do?”

That's the key question. Jeno wants to go back to his Earth, and even though Renjun hasn't mentioned it, a replica of his life can't replace his real life; so in the end they must confront Morlun. It’s such a wild possibility to Jeno’s virgin superhero mind that he stays petrified for a few seconds.

On the other hand, Renjun has a plan.

“First of all, we need help. When our kind first battled against Morlun, they gathered to be powerful enough,” Renjun tells him, sounding so excited that Jeno would swear he loves this life or death situation. Jeno has read the story, but Spider-Men win in every form of art the story was told, which is a lie. “So, other Spider-Men. If there are two Spider-Men in the same Earth, aka our Earth, aka us, it's statistically impossible that there aren't more of us in other Earths.”

That's a well put thought, and Jeno has never considered it. He didn't imagine the existence of another Spider-Man at all either, so he should trust Renjun's logic instead of his.

“You sound very sure,” Jeno supports him, but it's a veiled question.

Renjun frowns at him, and Jeno wonders if he has said something wrong until Renjun grabs a napkin and carefully wipes the corner of Jeno's mouth with it. He's meticulous about cleanliness, Jeno supposes, but if this is the result of it, Jeno is going to be a dirty pig.

“I have a few suspects,” Renjun reveals once he has wiped the stain away, eyes travelling from Jeno's mouth to his eyes.

Suspects. That's _exciting_.

“Show,” Jeno demands, almost like a challenge, in case Renjun doesn't intend to share his secrets.

What he doesn't expect is for his breakfast to get interrupted: Renjun grips his arm and drags him off the chair, ignoring how Jeno whines and tries to take a last spoon of lasagna. He's lucky that Renjun doesn't catch how the spoon dangerously rotates on the bowl's edge.

Renjun leads him into a small room, which looks like the guests' room, except that the walls are plastered with pictures, documents, and even mathematical equations. It's the first time Jeno feels like his story is complete: he has a partner, a villain to fight, a broken life, and a room worthy of any cliché movie about superheroes; or murders, for that matter.

“I'm pretty sure about this one,” Renjun announces, walking up to a very specific part of the wall. He doesn't walk, though: he skips like an eager kid. He detaches one of the pictures from the wall, a picture that shows a young boy with brown hair and round cheeks. “Lee Donghyuck. Earth-245.”

Jeno takes the picture, observing it with his best analytical eyes. The boy looks pretty normal, but so did Renjun until he decided to save Jeno's life. From now on, Jeno trusts no one, not even himself, and Donghyuck is included.

Renjun waves another picture in front of him, determination in his face, “And Lee Mark, Earth-34.”

Jeno bites his lower lip, pensive, and then flickers his eyes to Renjun's awaiting expression. “How did you number them? What's our Earth?”

“Earth-616,” Renjun says right away. He doesn't add whatever is on his mind, but he stares at Jeno with a hopeful glint, trying to see a hint of acknowledgement. That must have a heavy importance, but Jeno will need to be taught. Renjun shakes his head, surrendering. “And _I_ didn't number them, it took me years of research to figure out where we were living in.”

Jeno nods. Lee Donghyuck and Lee Mark stare at him from their respective pictures, with an innocent smile that can't reflect what they really are. Perhaps they aren't alive, for Morlun might have found them and killed them by now. And god, they're just kids, like the kid Jeno feels he is within too. They don't deserve to die, whether they have spider powers or not, and Jeno realizes how unfair this is for them. They didn’t choose to become Spider-Man, or to get their lives destroyed, or to put their families in danger. It just happened.

It's not a matter of defeating Morlun anymore. It's a matter of keeping his counterparts alive and giving them the chance they all deserve.

 

 

 

 

“I don’t see why we have to split up,” Jeno observes, consternation in his voice.

He’s not mad at Renjun, of course, since his frustration surges from the fact that he doesn’t want to leave Renjun’s side. Jeno is scared, and he’s not embarrassed to admit that to himself – he would never admit it to Renjun, though. Renjun has extensive experience in Earth travelling, but travelling through different Earths, alone, is quite an intimidating concept for Jeno.

And on top of that, his suit is back in Earth-616, so he’s venturing into this mission with Renjun’s regular clothes and the jeans he was wearing on that fatidic night; he’s lucky that Renjun likes loose clothes, because otherwise they wouldn’t fit them. Going shopping whilst other Spider-Men die wouldn’t be very heroic.

“You’re clingy,” Renjun notices with a scrunch of his nose. Jeno is getting used to his behavior: Renjun isn’t as bright as he was in the diner, but he doesn’t mean the insults he throws at Jeno from time to time. His mouth teases Jeno, his eyes reveal that he enjoys Jeno’s company. And when they sleep together, Renjun sometimes tucks his head under his arm. “It’s called efficiency. You get Lee Mark, I get Lee Donghyuck, and we don’t waste any more days sticking together as if we’re married.”

Renjun hands him the small metallic ball that he uses to open portals, so Jeno has no remedy but accept it. They have gone through the steps a thousand times, but Jeno still fears he might jump into the wrong Earth, not only once, but several times, and that he will have trouble finding his way back. Even if Renjun hasn’t fed his not so illogical doubts, both are aware that it’s plausible, and in that case Renjun would have to find Jeno again.

Jeno takes a last look at the living room, as to memorize it, and abides his destiny. “What if he doesn’t want to come with me?”

“Let’s believe they’re not stupid, okay?” Renjun supplies. But the memory of Jeno refusing to collaborate with Renjun, despite having Morlun on their heels, is present between them. Jeno might not be the smartest person in the world, but they can’t assume the other Spider-Men will be more intelligent than him. Renjun sighs in resignation. “If he doesn’t want to, you force him to. If he’s stronger than you…” He waves his hand around, as if he supposes that it’s an inevitable event. “I guess I’ll have to take care of that.”

When Jeno doesn’t answer, just staring at Renjun instead, Renjun tilts his head to the side. Then points with his chin at Jeno’s hands, urging him to leave.

Jeno still has to put a last fight, however, so he inhales for bravery and mumbles, “No offense, but I prefer fetching Donghyuck. He looks like a good kid.”

Renjun scoffs, far from amused. He pulls his red mask over his head, and between gritted teeth, he says, “Fine. Now, move.”

It wasn’t between gritted teeth, however. Jeno should have realized that Renjun was merely trying not to laugh.

 

 

 

 

Lee Donghyuck isn’t a good kid.

If Jeno had to make a pyramid about the bad types of young adults one can encounter, Donghyuck would definitely be in the highest third half. And, all in all, Jeno played himself by trusting appearances, so he’s the one to blame.

Figuring out where Donghyuck went – because he isn’t at home – is almost an impossible task. Jeno trespasses in the look for valuable information, checks Donghyuck’s laptop and makes a great effort to ignore the oddity of Donghyuck’s belongings. The worrying amount of rolling paper, scattered all over the kitchen’s countertop, is the most harmless thing in the house; the most harmful, the arsenal of hand-grenades in one of the closets.

Jeno is a coward in some aspects, yet he believes that a Spider-Man with grenades is reasonable, not alarming. Unlike him, Donghyuck might have decent villains to fight, thus he would need a way to protect himself. Renjun and Jeno surely would find an armed Spider-Man convenient.

However, in Donghyuck’s home there isn’t any hint of where he could be, and when Jeno walks into the hall and crosses paths with a neighbor, he doesn’t hesitate to ask about Donghyuck. An old friend, Jeno claims to be, but judging the woman’s finicky expression at the word _friend_ , it isn’t the right strategy.

“If you’re a good man, you should forget about your old friend,” the woman says, so solemn that Jeno would swear that she thinks of herself as a savior.

Yet Jeno doesn’t recognize the danger yet. Women in his neighborhood, especially his mother’s friends, have always been nitpicky and nosy, so he’s not surprised at Donghyuck’s neighbor badmouthing him. Donghyuck lives alone too, like Renjun and Jeno, so Jeno can understand how he feels, and how hard it must be on him.

When Jeno strides through the vestibule, pondering if he should stroll around the district in case luck smiles at him, his spider sense sweeps all his thoughts like a wave. He doesn’t react in time, which is weird, because he’s faster than any human, and he should definitely not find himself caged against a wall with a knife pressed against his Adam’s apple.

But he does, because this isn’t his Earth, and because Lee Donghyuck isn’t good company. The picture Renjun showed to him differs from the Donghyuck he has in front of him right now, red, badly trimmed hair and a gaze that could pierce Jeno’s guts and his whole existence.

“Who are you?” Donghyuck grumbles, sinking his forearm in Jeno’s chest to immobilize him. Jeno can barely breathe, but he can’t tell if it’s because of the knife on his neck or Donghyuck’s spider  strength. “If I owe you money, you’ve just made a mistake showing up at my house.”

Jeno’s mind spins. Donghyuck has caught him trespassing, so Jeno deserves this reaction to some extent, but what sort of person is Donghyuck to owe money? To owe money to the point someone would break into his house looking for him?

“It’s not that!” Jeno exclaims, voice strained since he’s afraid of accidentally pressing against the knife. “Lee Donghyuck, right?”

Donghyuck doesn’t back off, but his stare softens, perhaps because Jeno looks too innocent, like too much of a loser, to be a brute.

It’s a first for Jeno to introduce himself while he’s more preoccupied with getting alive out of this than with making a nice impression. He tries with a simple, “I’m Jeno.”

It’s evident Donghyuck doesn’t trust him, because a name could be fake, or useless to guarantee his safety. The fact that Jeno hasn’t attacked him yet must be what makes Donghyuck gradually relax, though he seizes the knife harder, knuckles going white, when he releases Jeno.

Jeno puffs a breath, relieved, but the pain in his chest and neck is hard to ignore. Upon noticing that Jeno isn’t a danger, Donghyuck sighs at him, arms falling at his side.

“Listen, if we hooked up and then I ditched you-” he begins, plastering on his face the fakest pitiful expression Jeno has ever seen. “I don’t do relationships, okay? You’re pretty good looking and all that jazz, but I’m a sentimental person, you know. Looks die, heart doesn’t.”

“What?” Jeno lifts his hand to halt him, too overwhelmed to explain how wrong Donghyuck is with his suppositions. “Stop talking, please.”

“We didn’t hook up?” Donghyuck asks, confused. A confusion that doesn’t remain, because Jeno shakes his head, Donghyuck scans him from head to toe, as to evaluate if he’s worthy of attention, and concludes, “Well, we can fix that, my house is right here and-”

Jeno can’t believe his ears. But on that note, he doesn’t want to hear what Donghyuck is going to propose either, so he cuts him off with a yelp. “I’m Spider-Man.”

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows in boredom.

“What is that?”

“Spider-Man?” Jeno attempts again, but to no avail. And fuck, maybe Jeno travelled into the wrong Earth, and this Donghyuck is indeed a bad kid with an arsenal of grenades that aren’t destined to save and help people. Jeno gulps, “Wait, what’s your superhero name?”

The glint of recognition in Donghyuck’s eyes is a good sign. That is, until he points his knife back at Jeno, chest inflating like a peacock’s.

“How do you know about that?”

“Because I’m like you!” Jeno squeals, more tired than alarmed because of Donghyuck’s antics. “Stop threatening me!”

Perhaps Jeno should have put up a good fight from the beginning, since lashing out works like a charm on Donghyuck. It’s about criminal respect, probably: Donghyuck swallows the weak ones and respects those who are as bad as he is.

“This better not be a trick,” Donghyuck warns him, yet he twirls the knife around and pushes it into his sleeve. “Otherwise you’re dead meat.”

 

 

 

 

Donghyuck resists, though resisting is a mild way to put it.

At first, he doesn’t believe what Jeno is claiming, which is natural, yet frustrating. Jeno has to make a whole presentation of his powers to prove that he’s Spider-Man, and that leads Donghyuck to demand a competition, because he sees Jeno’s weaknesses and he wants to show off, to humiliate him. And at last, Donghyuck deems appropriate to bring some of his grenades along, and they fight for half an hour until Donghyuck accepts the prohibition. Jeno wants the grenades, but he fears them too, and he can’t be sure if Renjun would like them or not.

Donghyuck refuses to tell him his real superhero name, he has ignored that he’s supposed to be called Spider-Man until today, and he doesn’t know who Morlun is. He hasn’t done any research on the matter either, focused on developing his powers and directing them to not so noble aims. Still, Donghyuck doesn’t like the idea of being eaten alive either.

When Jeno travels back to Earth-616, it becomes evident that Mark was the right choice. Mark himself, in the flesh, is loudly laughing at Renjun’s jokes, all cozy on the couch with him. They have been in the apartment for a while, judging that Renjun is wearing indoor shoes and there are three plates void of food on the living room’s table.

“You played me,” Jeno grunts as soon as Renjun glances at him.

“You played yourself,” Renjun retorts.

And he’s right.

Mark is indeed a very polite guy, so polite that he doesn’t even react when Donghyuck sneers at his button-up shirt and his moccasins. Jeno does too, but only when Mark isn’t watching. It’s not that Mark isn’t offended, though, it’s that he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with his outfit.

On the other hand, watching Renjun and Donghyuck talk is like walking through a mine site. Both sharp enough to cut, both prideful, tiptoeing around each other as though they’re aware that they’re the same kind of danger.

It’s odd when all of them have dinner on the couch and Jeno observes them, realizing that no matter how different they are as persons, they have a very important trait in common. Jeno thought he was alone, that no one would understand his struggles, and out of the blue he’s surrounded by three boys that can perfectly comprehend him. Odd, but comforting.

“So,” Donghyuck starts once they have finished eating, the bad movie playing on the television mixing with his voice. He stares at all of them, one by one, and points out, “It’s just the four of us? We are supposed to defeat an immortal villain that managed to wipe out our race before?”

They must work with what they have, even if it’s not much. It’s better to be ready than to spend all their time looking for more Spider-Men and get caught unprepared, and well, die.

Renjun clears his throat. “Actually, I found a few more of us,” he reveals, and when Jeno opens his mouth to protest because he should have told them earlier, Renjun shuts him up with a wave of his hand. “But they come with big or small defects.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asks with a nervous laugh. Jeno shares the sentiment.

Renjun gifts him an awkward smile. “Jisung, seventeen years old, transformed one month ago, like Jeno. But he can’t even shoot a proper web, and he broke his best friend’s leg last week when they were playing football because he can’t control his strength.”

Whilst Donghyuck grunts in disdain and Mark looks troubled, Jeno remains silent, because he doesn’t control his powers like he should either. Not to the point of breaking someone else’s leg, but maybe his? For sure.

“Jaemin,” Renjun continues with a sigh. It’s not a good sign. “I know him. In my Earth, I mean, but we kinda dated? Hm, in both Earths, so I didn’t think about recruiting him because he was going to refuse. But maybe if I’m not present when you fetch him, it will work. I can’t promise that he won’t leave afterwards though.”

“It was that bad, huh?” Donghyuck comments, amused. Jeno doesn’t know what’s so funny about it, because he pales at the mere possibility of having to work with one of Renjun’s ex-boyfriends. Renjun is supposed to be his romantic inte-. Nevermind. “We can lie to him and pretend you never dated him in your Earth.”

Mark agrees, “The more, the merrier. We’ll deal with the personal problems _if_ they surge.”

Even though he has democratic permission, Renjun still gazes at Jeno, waiting for his approval. There is a silent deal between them, so although Jeno didn’t contradict their opinions, Renjun can intuit that it’s not a pleasant situation for him. Jeno isn’t stupid, and he won’t let jealousy prevail over their security, thus he shrugs.

“And the last one is Chenle,” Renjun continues, shaking his head. “This one is really… good. But he’s hard to catch.”

“Again, what does that mean?”

It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Renjun is reticent to tell them. Perhaps he intended that they would chase Chenle without asking questions, but judging his tone, it’s riskier than he’s making it look.

“Chenle is the president’s son,” Renjun explains, slapping his hands on his thighs. His skepticism is valid, because the boy must be under great protection, and if Renjun, one of the most experienced among them, has doubts, the rest of them shouldn’t be any different. “Any volunteer to kidnap him?”

At first, no one answers. Jeno would volunteer just for the sake of being _that_ hero, but the idea of coming back to this Earth after failing isn’t appealing. If he’s going to disappoint his team, he prefers to do it when they’re in better terms, not right when they’ve just met each other.

However, Donghyuck’s gaze wanders over them in boredom, almost like he can’t believe how sluggish they are, and at last he lifts his hand.

With a click of his tongue, he announces, “I’ll do it. I take Chenle, Renjun takes Jisung, and you two,” he points at Mark and Jeno. “Take Jaemin.”

 

 

 

 

They don’t have any time to waste, so they plan to travel early in the morning. As Jeno has experienced, sometimes it’s not that simple to convince a person to leave their Earth even if their life depends on it, and it’s better to have a big margin of time.

But when it’s time to sleep, the lack of beds becomes evident. Jeno has been using Renjun’s bed without any issue, so they stick to that and battle Donghyuck and Mark so that they sleep together on the couch. Though it’s big enough for both, Jeno can hear them bicker only ten minutes after leaving them alone. It was bound to happen, he’s sure of that, because Mark might be innocent, but not dumb enough to overhear all of Donghyuck’s bullying.

Jeno jumps into bed first, watching how Renjun rubs a lotion in his hands in the other side of the room (his hands are rough from slapping against hard surfaces all the time, he claims), and ponders over everything that’s happening to him. He wonders if his friends have noticed his absence yet, or if they think Jeno had a wild night and is trying to find his way back upon waking up in another city. In another country, even. Taeyong always says that it’s something that has to happen to him at least once in his life. Jeno really outdid himself with this one, because it wasn’t a city or a country, it was a different universe.

Then, a realization looms over Jeno, and he shifts over the bed to have a better view of Renjun.

“Won’t be Jisung dangerous if he gets scared?” he asks.

“You’re worried about me?” Renjun retorts, not even dedicating him a mere glance. From that distance though, Jeno can distinguish the subtle tug at the corner of his lips. “You should worry about yourself.”

Jeno can’t help it. Perhaps one day it will be the other way around, and Jeno will have to fuss over Renjun’s safety, but it’s not his place now. In fact, Jeno meddling would potentially make any situation more dangerous.

“And about my ex,” Renjun adds, and Jeno startles. His smirk is gone, and he gazes at Jeno with an unreadable expression, which drives Jeno to suspect the worse. “I don’t have any feelings for him anymore.”

Jeno shouldn’t be relieved. And he is. The Jaemin they’re trying to recruit isn’t the same boy that Renjun dated, and somehow he still is. Jeno is sure that love triangles aren’t an obligatory part of a superhero story, so he definitely wants to skip that one.

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Jeno assures, dissimulating his embarrassment with a scoff.

Renjun doesn’t acknowledge him at first, yet once he’s done with his lotion, he climbs into bed with him. And it’s weird, Jeno thinks, to have a casual talk with Renjun while they prepare to sleep together again. It’s not a sort of weird that Jeno would dislike, though.

“You sure?” Renjun whispers, tugging the covers up to his waist. Then, lying with arms extended at his sides, Renjun turns his head over the pillow to look at him. Jeno tries not to spin his head, yet his heart is weaker than his mind, and soon he finds himself staring into Renjun’s eyes. Renjun’s eyes, which brighten up as he whispers, “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”

“That’s not funny. Don’t play with me.”

Renjun’s smile widens. “I’ll play with whoever I want.”

Jeno’s heart stops beating for a worrying amount of time. Renjun isn’t his love interest in the movie. He’s the villain.

 

 

 

 

Fetching Jaemin should be an easy task, at least compared to Donghyuck’s confrontation.

Even though Mark and Jeno’s trip is void of violence, it’s difficult to locate Jaemin, because all the information Renjun has about him is pretty basic: where he lives, what he studies, who his friends are; nothing that would help if Jaemin decided to disappear one day.

Jaemin attends the university that is two streets away from his house, but he turns out to be a ditcher, since they don’t manage to find him in any corner of the faculty. Accustomed to ask, Jeno gives it a shoot, just to discover that almost every student knows Jaemin – he doesn't question the motive, for it's an advantage for them, but as usual it carries some surprises.

The collected information brings them, in the end, to the archers association for students. Archers have a small office where they eat, celebrate their meetings and spend their time in general. Where they ditch classes too, Jeno discovers, because Jaemin is there. And when Jeno pulls the door open, he swears that there isn't a single normal Spider-Man apart from Renjun and him (he has his doubts about Mark, because a normal person wouldn't wear such moccasins).

A wave of weed hits Jeno in the face, so thick and potent that he fears getting high in the next five seconds. It wouldn't be odd, for he doesn't smoke week – doesn't smoke in general – and his body is weaker to drugs than he would like to admit.

He takes a peek back at Mark, who's sniffing the air with a curious expression. Curiosity, Jeno processes. Mark doesn't know how weed smells.

“You want to go in first?” Jeno tells him, in a fit of evil that isn't proper of him. A part of him wants to witness Mark's reaction when he encounters the situation ahead.

“Sure,” Mark agrees, innocent, and sends Jeno an amicable smile before walking past by him.

Jaemin is indeed inside. He looks similar to the pictures Renjun has shown him, but the first impression is enough for Jeno to realize that those pictures were Jaemin from Earth-616, aka Renjun's actual ex-boyfriend. The Jaemin from this Earth is pretty different.

First of all, he's one of the culprits of the weed, sitting around a table with his friends, half of them with their feet propped up on it, Jaemin included. Second, this Jaemin has piercings. A lot of them, in Jeno's opinion, too many of them. Two rings in the same side of his nose, one in his right eyebrow, a snake bite on his lower lip, and when Jaemin turns his head to look at them, Jeno catches at least ten piercings in his right ear.

It leaves Jeno a bit breathless, a thought that he’s going to push to the darkest corner of his mind. Besides, Mark backtracks, losing his balance, and Jeno has to discreetly hold him by the waist. The amount of smoke in the room is proof that this is a hotbox, and if Mark passes out in front of this Jaemin, he will never listen to them.

“Are you new?” one of Jaemin's friends, a girl with red hair and blue lenses, shoots at them.

Mark stays silent, making a weird noise in the back of his throat, so Jeno comes forward and prays that Mark won't die in the next thirty seconds. “Actually, we aren't here for the club. We-”

Before Jeno can explain himself, Jaemin frowns at them and interrupts, “You can't be here if you're not part of the club.”

Jeno has a rude reply to that, something to do with archers replacing bows with weed, but he bites his own tongue.

“We're looking for you,” Jeno announces. “It's not about the club.”

“For me?” Jaemin says, and then lets out a short laugh, as though he's used to be approached by strangers, as though he's some type of celebrity. He shrugs. “I don't know you, dude.”

“Jaemin?” Jeno tries, and then remembers that the whole faculty knew his name. Jaemin looks as indifferent as earlier. “I do know you.” The girl shifts her gaze from them to Jaemin, judgmental. “Did you get into trouble?”

“I don't get into trouble,” Jaemin spits at her right away, defensive. That's quite revealing for Jeno, but Jaemin manages to draw a smile and assure, “I'm an angel.”

One normal Spider-Man, Jeno prays within, just one, please.

“We just want to talk for a minute,” Jeno insists.

Resigned, and clearly not in the mood to leave his chair, his friends and his weed, Jaemin accepts, “Only because you're hot. Five minutes top.”

Jeno makes an effort to ignore the compliment, a compliment that he can't tell if it's directed at Mark or at him, and walks out the office. It's a relief to breath healthy air, but the change in atmosphere is still too big for Mark, and Jeno has to clutch him again as his body gets used to the new hit of oxygen.

“No weed for you, that's clear,” Jeno mutters under his breath.

Mark nods, eyes closed, not a single trace of embarrassment in his face. A tingle of fondness invades Jeno, perhaps because he's not used to taking care of anyone, perhaps because Mark is kind of adorable for real, not only in his point of view.

Jaemin follows them, and if he was intimidating while sitting behind a table, Jeno feels like fainting when he spots him on his feet. Jaemin is tall, lean, has really long legs, and there's no doubt why everyone in the faculty knows him. It's impossible not to look at a boy like Jaemin, and Jeno means impossible as in it should be forbidden by law.

“W-well,” Jeno stutters, sinking his fingers in Mark's side for support. Mark jumps a little, but he keeps his pride intact. “I will just go straight to the point.”

Jaemin checks both of them out, and if Jeno thought that Donghyuck was bad, that's nothing compared to Jaemin's demeaning attitude. “I'd appreciate.”

Jeno needs his strongest weapons. No matter how intimidating they are, all of them have three weaknesses: ethyl chloride, their loved ones, and their secret identity. Jeno doesn't have ethyl chloride at hand, plus it would hurt him as well, so he attacks the only aspect that is available for him to destroy.

He sheepishly smiles at Jaemin, for he has never bullied anyone this way, and offers, “It's never a bad day to talk about Spider-Man, right?”

Jaemin's confidence evaporates within a second.

 

 

 

 

“No fucking way,” Jaemin sputters, still with his knees on the floor after falling through the portal. His gaze scans Renjun's living room like it's hell itself, pure terror in his face as the truth solidifies in his head. “This is my ex's house!”

Jeno hasn't thought about this possibility. It didn't even cross his mind, and he should be ashamed, because he had all the information to predict this. Renjun warned him that their Earth and Jaemin's Earth were pretty similar, and of course Renjun lives in the same apartment in both Earths.

Jeno awkwardly clears his throat, rubbing his nape in embarrassment. “We forgot to talk about this little detail.”

Being the object of Jaemin's furious, incredulous glare is far from relaxing, but maybe Jeno should have shut up. He doesn’t understand why it’s such a big deal in the first place. Yhey dated, had a bad ending, but it’s pretty unusual to have nice break-ups. Whatever Renjun did wrong, he did it wrong in both Earths.

“Perhaps you should tell him...” Mark whispers to Jeno then, not low enough for Jaemin not to hear them.

“Tell him what?”

“That you're Renjun's boyfriend?”

Jeno laughs out loud. Yet he stops right away, because he has two pairs of eyes on him, and none of those have the slightest amusement in them. Mark isn’t joking, he really isn’t, whilst Jaemin is staring him with a mixture of disgust and pity.

Mouth terribly dry, Jeno croaks out, “No, I'm not. Where did you get that idea from?”

“Uh, the first thing Renjun did was to tell me that you were his.” Mark stares at the floor, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “And maybe those were the exact words. _His_. And you sleep together. So I thought you were boyfriends?”

Jeno is speechless, because there isn’t any other way he can react to this. A thin voice in his head whispers that he should be happy, because if Renjun is shooing other boys away from him, it means that he’s interested in Jeno. But another part of him is annoyed, tremendously so. Renjun acts as if Jeno is the only one with a one-sided, ridiculous crush on someone he doesn’t really know. And Jeno knows that it’s illogical, yes, and he wouldn’t believe in love at first sight if he hadn’t met Renjun, but Renjun has the nerve of pretending that he doesn’t feel the same towards Jeno.

For Jeno, it’s not just a crush anymore. All those layers to Renjun’s personality, that should deter Jeno from liking him, are just adding more reasons for Jeno to like him. He has given up his fantasy of Renjun being a piece of his superhero story, and considering that Jeno takes his superhero pride very seriously, that shows that Jeno will give anything up just to have his story with Renjun. Whatever kind of story that is.

Jaemin stands up, scanning the living room again in resignation. Then he points at Jeno and, as a small gesture to connect with him, groans, “Typical Renjun stuff.”

Possessiveness? Being scary? Not communicating his feelings?

“You don't know this Renjun,” Jeno protests, but damn, he barely knows him too. Jaemin might be right.

Jaemin isn’t coy, rolls his eyes at his denial and walks over to the couch. “Sounds the same to me, dude,” he assures. Jeno regrets this whole conversation, but over all, he regrets thinking that they needed Renjun’s ex so desperately. Jaemin lets himself drop on the couch with a sigh. “I'm done with him, anyhow, on any Earth. So he's all yours.”

Instead of continuing this soon-to-be fight, for Jeno can’t take criticism about Renjun, he spins around and heads to the kitchen. Even though it didn’t take them long to convince Jaemin to accompany them, the explanations were long and detailed, so Jeno is tired and hungry. Jaemin, on the other hand, insists that weed activates his appetite, and Mark needs some energy to deal with the second-hand highness he has received.

However, when Jeno strides back into the living room with a tray full of snacks, he’s being waited for. It’s impossible to ignore such fact when Jaemin has turned around over the couch, hawk eyes that dilate when Jeno appears; Mark’s awkwardness is only the last ingredient of a blatantly tense situation.

Jaemin doesn’t bother to explain what the problem is, needless to say. He just demands, “Tell me your last name isn’t Lee.”

Sometimes, lying isn’t a bad move, but Jeno isn’t ready to read this stance right now. “It is.”

“And you aren’t studying Engineering, are you?”

Jeno halts, hugging the tray closer as to protect himself from Jaemin. He feels preyed on, because he is. And when Jeno hesitates to reply, he can distinguish how Jaemin presses his lips into a line, his snake bites moving with the pressure.

“What is this about?” Jeno mutters, looking between Mark and Jaemin in fear.

Mark is scared too, which doesn’t seem to be a rare occurrence, but it still wakes up Jeno’s alarms.

“Are you an engineering student, Jeno?” Jaemin repeats, firmer than before, more impatient. Jeno is, but he can’t tell how Jaemin figured that out, and less why he’s so keen on having a confirmation. “Do you go to that pink cheap diner and flirt with boys?”

Jeno runs a thousand theories in his head in the span of one second. It’s enough for Jeno to discover what’s going on. Renjun and Jaemin dated in both Earths. Renjun broke up with Jaemin in both Earths. And there was a Lee Jeno involved, so Jeno would have to be an idiot not to connect the dots.

Renjun ended his relationships with this Jaemin in the other Earth to date Jeno. A Lee Jeno that Renjun met in the diner, while working, and that wasn’t too shy to hit on Renjun, unlike him, the Jeno from Earth-616.

And Renjun from Earth-616 did the same, except Jeno ignores the actual reason of the break-up. Sure, the diner is there, and Renjun knew Jeno liked the diner just because of him, so Jeno wonders what would have happen if they had just had a little bit more of time… or if none of them had been Spider-Men. If whether post or pre break-up, they would have fallen for each other anyway.

“Shit,” Jeno grunts.

Jaemin lets out a high pitched whine that doesn’t match up his face, his figure or his presence in general. Just like Donghyuck, he’s not as scary as he looks, though Jeno is still wary of how crazy they can become under the wrong circumstances.

“You stole my boyfriend in both Earths.” Jaemin drops his head on Mark’s shoulder, defeated by the revelation. Mark’s eyes widen right away, his hands hovering over Jaemin’s back as though touching Jaemin is a sin. Jaemin is sin on legs, anyway, so Jeno can’t blame him. “I want to go home and let Morlun kill me.”

Jeno should pity him, at least a bit. But Jaemin is over Renjun, and deep inside, Jeno hopes his Earth-303 version is enjoying Earth-303’s Renjun.

 

 

 

 

There are good Spider-Men.

Three, to be exact, which means the bad Spider-Men are winning in the statistics. And if Jeno counts only those who are good-hearted within and skillful with their powers, they’re down to two good Spider-Men: Mark and Chenle.

Jeno’s concern turns out to be justified, because Jisung is a walking disaster waiting to happen. Claiming that his powers are out of control is an understatement: as soon as Renjun and Jisung cross the portal, Jisung shoots a web that sticks to the biggest painting in the living room and throws it across the room. All of them have to duck in an attempt not to wind up headless, and even Jisung does, forgetting that the painting will fly to him anyway. Much to their luck, Renjun reacts in time, throwing a new web that is stronger than Jisung’s, and keeps the painting pinned to the floor.

It breaks in two, however, due to the difference in pressure, and Jeno can see Renjun’s happiness vanish.

It’s just natural that the first words they hear from Jisung are, “I’m sorry!”

Everyone shares that sentiment, with more intensity even, Jeno would say. Two seconds into meeting Jisung, and he already knows that bringing him here was a bad idea. Perhaps he could accidentally kill Morlun, though, one never knows.

That’s not the worst part of his arrival. The worst is that while dealing with the mess, Renjun doesn’t have time to check if they have collected Jaemin, so when he’s picking up the painting, he has a sudden revelation. Jeno observes Jaemin, who has been glowering at Renjun since he showed up, and has to retain the urge of smacking Jaemin’s head.

But then Renjun meets Jaemin’s stare, using the broken painting as a cane, and his eyes roam over Jaemin’s face with interest.

“Wow, that’s a lot of piercings,” he comments, _appreciates_. Jeno’s stomach churns. He agrees that Jaemin looks good with all that decoration on his face, but he doesn’t want to hear it from Renjun. “Awkward, right?”

“Awkward?” Jaemin scoffs, not hiding his disgust. “I’m not sure. I only feel rage when I look at you.”

Renjun glances at Jeno, and although Jeno wishes he would know what Renjun expects to find in him, he doesn’t. In fact, rather than helping Renjun, Jeno has a lot of questions to bombard him with.

“Well, you don’t look that much like my Jaemin,” he assures, checking Jaemin out again. Jaemin visibly tenses up at the way Renjun refers to _his_ Jaemin, and so does Jeno. Renjun is far from innocent and is aware of the weight of every one of his words. “So I’m fine with this.”

Jaemin isn’t fine with it, especially not while everyone has their eyes on him and letting go of his grudges so fast would count as a defeat.

So Jaemin, following Renjun’s gaze towards Jeno, spits, “You’re the same asshole in both Earths. Fell for the same side guy, too.”

That’s the most hurtful statement Jeno has ever heard. This is his story. He’s not a side character, less a side guy, and Jeno won’t surrender so easily, no matter how many times Renjun and Jaemin have kissed, no matter if Renjun wanted to bring Jaemin for obscure reasons or for security reasons, no matter if-

“It must be destiny, then, right?” Renjun retorts, his eyes stuck on Jeno, face completely void of mockery.

Jeno swears he’s not getting alive out of this, and it isn’t Morlun who will kill him.

 

 

 

 

Donghyuck doesn’t come back that night.

His absence proves how fast they can get entangled in their own paranoia, because after midnight Renjun is coming up with dozen of possibilities, none of them positive. Jeno guides him to his bedroom by the hand, _their_ bedroom from now on, so that he doesn’t infect the team with his conjectures. It has the wished effect, for soon they’re gathering to go sleep, complaining because they’re crammed in the bed.

However, Renjun doesn’t calm down; he walks around the room like a caged animal, while Jeno sends him a pitiful look from the bed. There’s not much they can do but wait, and this energy that Renjun is wasting is precious for all of them.

“He could have gotten caught,” he’s saying, glancing at Jeno from time to time for approval. “By security, I guess? But what if they’re in trouble? What if Morlun found that Earth and he killed Chenle, or killed them, or they’re being chased while we sit here?”

“They’re not. They’re safe,” Jeno lies. It’s a lie because Renjun’s theories could hit the nail on the head. “It’d take Donghyuck five seconds to come into this Earth and ask for our help.”

“Right.” Renjun squints at the nothingness, turning on his heels. “So what’s keeping him there for so long?”

All in all, Renjun’s stubbornness is adorable, or it would be if it wasn’t past midnight. Jeno sits up straight on the mattress, considering if he should carry Renjun to bed himself and force him to sleep, but he has a better idea to draw his attention.

“Can you come here?” Jeno pleads on purpose, pushing his pride aside. “Please, I need to talk to you.”

He needs to, anyway. And Renjun is aware of this, because he gazes at him with his eyebrows raised and accuses him, “Do you think it’s the right time to talk about Jaemin?”

Jeno gives him a sheepish smile, yet he answers, “Yeah.”

“The nerve,” Renjun mumbles. However, he must hold a piece of guilt within, otherwise he wouldn’t obey Jeno and jump into bed with him. Though scowling, he faces Jeno with a trail of resignation in his eyes. “Fine.”

After a couple of days, spending most of their time alone with each other, Jeno isn’t intimidated by Renjun anymore. He still feels butterflies in his stomach, an unstoppable force that makes him sick in a thrilling way, but he’s sure that it’s because he’ll never get used to Renjun.

It’s that newfound familiarity what drives Jeno to be direct, not to tiptoe around him and hesitate.

“You broke up with Jaemin because of me even though we didn’t really know each other?” Jeno shoots, not pondering about how it sounds. It sounds crazy. Perhaps both of them are a bit crazy.

“Why are you using that judgmental tone? You had a crush on me too.” Renjun’s scowl dies down, replaced by reproach and a hint of immaturity. He has a point, but Jeno will always rejoice in the fact that, though Renjun pretended it was a one-sided crush, it never was. Renjun flirted with other clients in front of him, never flirted with him, and yet Renjun only wanted him. “Jaemin and me weren’t that serious yet, unlike in Earth-303. You had been going there for a long time, for me obviously, I thought you were cute, and then you got your powers.”

Even if their relationship wasn’t serious, Jeno’s brain can’t understand why Renjun would throw it away for a cute stranger. It was Jeno becoming a Spider-Man what contributed to Renjun’s final decision. Maybe if Jeno wasn’t, then their paths wouldn’t have met beyond flirting while Renjun served him.

“Why is that important?”

“I was in a relationship with someone that didn’t know I was Spider-Man,” Renjun replies without missing a beat. He bends forward, fisting the covers and dragging them away from Jeno; Jeno watches them slip over his legs, letting Renjun play with that little gesture of exposure. “Tell me, when you became Spider-Man, didn’t you think it would be a problem to be with me?”

Jeno surrendered his intentions for Renjun right away, even if he had this superhero fantasy blooming in his head. He knows that being a superhero has big disadvantages, and that being in love with someone automatically transforms them into a target, so yes, he discarded Renjun as a serious option to date.

And there’s no need for Jeno to answer, for Renjun has experienced it himself with Jaemin.

“But you were like me, and I liked you, and Jaemin…” he trails off. And Jaemin couldn’t be in his life anymore, he means to say. Maybe it was for the better, maybe Jeno has what Renjun needs, maybe Renjun has what Jeno needs. “During the first days I could see your webs sticking to your cups. It was sort of funny.”

It’s impossible not to smile at that, not when Renjun’s expression lightens up for the first time tonight at the memory of Jeno being a clumsy Spider mess. Jeno blames his whipped self, because he kept going to the diner to see Renjun when he should have stayed at home, trying to hide his powers from the world. In fact, he stopped attending his classes until he got a grasp of his powers, out of fear that he would be discovered. But he couldn’t stop going to the diner.

“So you broke up with Jaemin,” Jeno mutters, and Renjun is so, so close, and Jeno doesn’t know what this means, if Renjun is just playing with him again, if he’s going to get slapped after daring to close the last bit of distance between them.

“I broke up with Jaemin, not because I didn’t love him anymore, but because-” Renjun continues, lowering his voice. From the living room, they can hear Mark’s laughter and a big rattling noise. “I felt an unexplainable pull towards you, and then we were the same and there was nothing preventing me from getting close to you.”

There’s a little trick there. Renjun isn’t shy, he doesn’t waste his time, and though he isn’t hiding his feelings anymore, he’s moving too slowly. They’re twenty, sharing a bed, and they haven’t even kissed, but they kissed Yukhei fast enough. Renjun doesn’t want to kiss him, and Jeno can’t figure out why.

Jeno licks his lips, wondering if he should take this risk. It’s now or never, however, so Jeno has enough courage to ask, “And what’s preventing you now?”

It’s the first time Jeno recognizes an emotion akin to surprise in Renjun’s eyes. He has his guards down at such a delicate question.

“I don’t know if we’ll live,” Renjun confesses, stare travelling to the mattress. And then, their tension is gone, and Jeno doesn’t want to kiss him anymore: he wants to lie to him. Jeno doesn’t know if they’ll live either, but he has the urge of convincing Renjun that they will, that they’ll go back to Earth-616 together. “Is that enough of a reason for you, Jeno?”

It isn’t.

 

 

 

 

Zhong Chenle isn’t a normal boy in many aspects, but the most striking aspect of all them is that he can’t stop talking.

Donghyuck’s arrival comes like a wave in the morning, the portal opening up right by the kitchen and a very composed Donghyuck jumping into the apartment as if it’s his daily routine. Chenle appears after him, perfectly stabilized on his feet and a smile on his face, gaze sweeping the place. Both of them look like they’ve had a great night of sleep, perhaps have gotten a few massages and strolled by the beach during the sunset. Needless to say, it feels like a slap in the face after Renjun stressed out for the whole night, not letting Jeno rest either in consequence.

However, having Donghyuck in one piece before them mitigates all their suffering, and Jeno doesn’t wonder if he should hold a grudge against him for taking so long to come back. Renjun is silent at first, but he holds onto Jeno by fisting the side of his jumper, as though all the tension has abandoned his body and he needs support to stand up.

Donghyuck is oblivious of their misery, and if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t care much anyhow. He smiles at them, triumphant, smiles and smiles until his gaze stumbles upon Jaemin.

“Wow,” he observes, not a single trace of embarrassment at his own reaction. He did the same to Jeno, which should offend Jeno, but he understands Donghyuck’s awe. Jaemin is a sight to see. Jaemin stares back at him with the characteristic boredom of someone that is used to getting all the attention, but that doesn't faze Donghyuck, who smirks and says, “Hello.”

Introductions are a hassle, to the point that Jeno introduces himself to Renjun again by accident (Renjun just observes him, however, instead of stopping him, and then walks away with a scoff). Chenle keeps him entertained for five whole minutes, relating that his parents don’t allow him to go out alone and that Donghyuck waited for him to sneak out as Spider-Man to approach him. They had an epic fight, according to Chenle, but two seconds into the conversation Jeno realizes that Chenle isn’t that reliable when it comes to story-telling. Donghyuck chases after Jaemin even after their introductions, but Jaemin seems to be overwhelmed by the attention. Jisung, always clumsy, has a hard time with the handshakes, for his webs are out of control and stick to their hands right away; Jaemin sees his salvation from Donghyuck there, and drags a very terrified Jisung to the bathroom with him, hooked by their palms.

It takes them almost one hour to calm down, and it’s Renjun who has to forfecully guide them one by one to the couch. A couch that, Jeno notices, isn’t going to fit five boys, which means they will have to share the bed too. That is the end of his intimacy with Renjun.

But the house feels different this way, with seven boys that can understand each other more than anyone else in their lives, full of life, chatter and noise. Jeno is sure that he’ll grow to hate this ruckus at night, yet right now it blooms in his chest as he watches six strangers, on an unknown Earth for them, be happier than ever.

When he catches Renjun’s look across the couch, Renjun sports the same smile on his face, but he’s not smiling at the boys. Just at Jeno.

 

 

 

 

“First of all,” Renjun begins, setting his palm against the edge of the table. “We should talk about how we became Spider-Men.”

Jeno knows this bar, for it exists in Earth-616, but he would have never imagined he’d be the one drinking beer in a heavy metal themed bar. Their group, a bunch of young men along with couple of teenagers, would have stood out if half of the customers weren’t drunk by the time they walked in. But it’s past two in the morning, no one can make out their faces anymore, and so no one pays attention to the seven Spider-Men discussing their powers in a corner.

“Who wants to begin?” Renjun continues, smiling up at them. Jeno, next to him, observes his profile, observes how his sweetness runs out at the silence. There is a reason behind that, and Jeno realizes too: the rest of the team isn’t merely being shy over their own stories. The sudden tension in the atmosphere hints that they’d prefer to hide their origins for other reasons. “Okay, this is suspicious.”

“Suspicious?” Jeno helps Renjun, prompting to talk.

Renjun glances at Jeno, resigned, before turning back to his audience and asking, “How many of you hooked up with a boy called Yukhei?”

There are many levels to horror, and the one Jeno experiences is a nightmare-level horror. All at once, Jaemin, Donghyuck, Mark and Chenle look at Renjun with equally dismayed, shocked expressions. Words aren’t necessary.

They have two things in common: one, being Spider-Men; two, that it was Yukhei who turned them, and hence that Yukhei shoved his tongue down their throats. Jeno is far from prudish, but sitting around a table with six boys that made out with Yukhei isn’t a pleasant experience. Besides, it’s hard not to notice that Yukhei went for attractive boys, which makes Jeno suspect that he wasn’t chosen because he could be a good fit for a superhero. Just because he’s hot, instead.

“God, I feel so dirty and ordinary,” Jeno grunts.

To his shock, Renjun gives him a lopsided smile, amused. He must think that Jeno deserves that for not being loyal to his supposed crush, for giving preference to his physical needs over his emotional needs. Renjun isn’t better than him, though, because he fell for Yukhei’s tricks too. He must not regret it, unlike Jeno, because when Jeno frowns at him, Renjun doesn’t falter.

“If you’re liking that, I can provide you with some more,” Donghyuck proposes, completely serious, and a chain of complaints erupts around the table.

Renjun isn’t that content anymore, and when his smile vanishes in favor of a glare, Jeno counts it as a small win.

“He’s okay,” he assures Donghyuck, and Donghyuck glances at Jeno, eyebrows raised as to ask for confirmation. Renjun follows his example, and Jeno finds himself being stared at by six guys, waiting for him to choose between two boys that could kill a man with a glance. Jeno doesn’t choose, though, because it’s the first time Renjun doesn’t hold any power over him, no matter if giving Donghyuck that power might be dangerous. Renjun mumbles, “You have to be kidding me.”

“Can we leave the love fights for later?” Jaemin protests.

Clearly bothered by Jeno’s silence, Renjun nods and focuses on their team.

“Yukhei attracts boys like flies,” he says, observing the real proof before his eyes. “But yes, he lured us to turn us into Spider-Men, not because he liked us, there’s no point in feeling bad about it.”

“I didn’t hook up with him,” Jisung clarifies, a small cough to grab their attention. It’s evident he’s not used to such attention, because he cowers as soon as everyone turns to him. “My brother did.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “That explains a lot. You must have been a mistake.”

Jisung pulls an offended face, “Really? A _mistake_?”

But Donghyuck has a point, Jeno reckons. Jisung might have been too young for Yukhei to use the same tricks he used on the rest, but Jeno is sure that Yukhei has other tricks up his sleeve. It’s impossible that his only plan is to make out with the future Spider-Men, because for starters, they might not like men. That, or Yukhei is trying to form an army of gay Spider-Men.

“Don’t bully him,” Jaemin reproaches Donghyuck. Jisung, next to him, lets out a nervous laugh. Jeno has to repress his own laughter, understanding why Jisung is so uncomfortable, when Jaemin pets his hair and announces, “I’ll teach him.”

Jisung melts under the touch, sinking in his seat. Jaemin must be used to seeing himself in the mirror, so he ignores the effect he can have on people, especially on boys like Jisung, who isn’t capable of looking him in the eye without stuttering.

 “Why would Wong Yukhei want to create us?” Chenle asks as he side eyes Jisung with a judgmental look.

“That’s what we have to figure out,” Renjun answers. Even if he has been researching for a long time, he doesn’t have any solutions, so it has to be frustrating for him too. “It might have been the same Yukhei travelling through different Earths, or the alternative Yukhei from each Earth. But what we know for sure is that the Yukhei in Earth-616 made two Spider-Men, Jeno and I, and that’s not a coincidence.”

“Oh, destined couple,” Donghyuck teases them, not backing away when Renjun flips him off.

Chenle shushes them, annoyed. “Wait, are you insinuating we should kidnap the Yukhei from Earth-616?”

“But Morlun has discovered that Earth. If we go there, Morlun could detect us,” Jaemin supplies.

Jeno hasn’t considered the possibility of going back to his Earth, but he wants to do so with his whole soul. Perhaps he could send his parents a text about going on a trip so that they don’t worry, and he could get his Spider-Man suit, because he’s the only one in the group who didn’t have time to take it. Renjun has a few extra suits, sure, but he’s also way smaller and thinner, and Jeno feels like he’s a stripper when wearing Renjun’s clothes.

“I didn’t say it was safe.” Renjun shrugs. They won’t be safe forever, not even in this Earth. It’s a matter of time until Morlun finds them here, and they can’t spend their whole lives jumping from Earth to Earth. “But Yukhei is our only card. A boy with a radioactive spider can’t be a simple university student, he must have important information or important plans.”

Renjun allows that fact to sink. It’s quite powerful, since none of them ever ponder about how they’re a new generation of Spider-Men, about how they have a purpose and, after all, their Earths do need them. Whether Yukhei’s intentions are bad or good, he wasn’t just playing with his spiders, but transforming them one by one on purpose.

Mark is the first one to accept that they’re indeed putting their lives at risk, and he nods, agreeing. “We shouldn’t travel together, not all of us, or we’ll be easier to detect.”

Their Spider essence will alert Morlun scarily fast if the seven of them are on an Earth that Morlun has access to, and they need to avoid that at all costs. The idea is to look for Yukhei and interrogate him, even to bring him to this Earth. But the mission carries big risks: in their eyes, Yukhei was an attractive guy with quite the smooth physical skills, yet he’s nothing but that. As Renjun has said, Yukhei isn’t a normal university student living a normal life. They don’t know him at all.

“Jisung is definitely staying,” Renjun confirms. “Volunteers?”

Jisung already has a sour expression before he can interpret the silence that follows. After the silence that evidences that no one wants to abandon the mission just to accompany Jisung, the boy protests, “I don’t need to be babysat.”

“I differ,” Renjun retorts.

And he’d know, because he was the one who had to bring him to this Earth. Jisung is younger than them, and he has been obviously coddled all his life, because he can’t take any criticism even if it’s true. Jeno’s body prepares to react in case Jisung’s powers get out of control, but there is no need to: Jaemin sets his hand on Jisung’s shoulder, smiles, and announces, “I’ll stay with him.”

Jeno can’t decide if Jisung is terribly scared or excited.

 

 

 

 

And then there are seven Spider-Men, and Jeno’s story begins.


	2. One Spider-Man to rule them all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people are afraid Jeno will die, and other people want to kill him for being a fool. There’s no in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know, the funny thing is that this was supposed to be posted one week after the first part. then life happened. and it took this long.  
> not only that, but the second part is 24k and this is now my second longest nct fic. honestly i think i have a problem with superhero aus and i just get too carried away lmao
> 
> despite the long wait and the amount of words, I hope you all can enjoy it! im sad to say goodbye to this world *throws kisses to the air and runs away from this fic forever*

“Can you stop worrying about your suit?” Renjun protests after Jeno proposes going home for the third time that morning.

They’ve just crossed the portal to Earth-616, and needless to say, picking up his actual Spider-Man suit is Jeno’s priority. The suit Renjun has lent him chokes him in the wrong places – Jeno doesn’t mean that he has right places to be choked, believe him – and he looks like a kid that dressed himself up for the first time.

But Renjun doesn’t welcome his complaints. They’re standing on the rooftop of Millestone, the skyscraper of an underwear company, Mark taking off his shoes, Donghyuck checking Jeno out from behind (Jeno doesn’t see him, but his Spider sense works to the extent of knowing when someone is looking at his ass), and Chenle running to the edge of the rooftop to take a peek at a different Earth.

“You wouldn’t say that if you were wearing something of this size,” Jeno retorts, pulling at the fabric on his thighs. He barely can pinch and pull, and he isn’t sure he’ll be able to get out of this suit later. Maybe if he rips it off.

Donghyuck walks up to him, a lopsided smile on his face, “I don’t know, man, I like how tight it’s on you.”

Even with grenades and other weapons, Donghyuck can’t scare him enough for Jeno to cower when he hits on him. Jeno smacks him in the arm, palm open, and Donghyuck laughs out loud.

“Don’t look at me, pervert,” Jeno mumbles.

“What am I supposed to do, ignore that you’re hot?”

Renjun steps forward, placing himself between Jeno and Donghyuck, and dedicates the latter the fakest smile Jeno has ever seen him display. “Yes, do exactly that.”

“It’s your fault for liking guys like this one,” Donghyuck says, waving his hand to point at Jeno. Irking Renjun seems to be a good pastime for him. “Your ex? Hot. Yukhei? Hot. Jeno? Look at him being hot in this pathetically sized suit.”

Before Renjun can conclude that trapping Donghyuck in a web and leaving him alone on the skyscraper is a good idea, Chenle screams, “Why are the skyscrapers in your Earth so short?”

Such question brings Renjun back to the mission, because the whole team is distracted and they can’t afford such a waste of time. They need to find Yukhei fast, and Renjun split the group for that, but now he simply grabs Jeno by the arm, even though Jeno isn’t part of his team and dedicates Donghyuck a sweet, “Good luck in Yukhei’s university.”

Jeno experiences a wave of satisfaction when Renjun pulls both of them off the skyscraper. It’s amusing that Renjun wants to break their initial plans just because he doesn’t want Donghyuck to flirt with him, not that Jeno is ever going to admit he likes this. Renjun releases him one second later in the air so that Jeno moves across the city by himself, and Jeno free falls for one millisecond before controlling his powers.

He has always done this alone, and as soon as he registers that Renjun and he are flying through the city together, he feels warmness extend through his body to his fingertips. Death threat or not, it’s fun, a moment of bonding, two Spider-Men becoming blurred spots and crossing paths fifty feet off the floor. And most important, back at home.

Perhaps it was meant to be this way on Earth-616. Perhaps this Earth needed two Spider-Men to work together, to complement each other. That, or Jeno likes Renjun too much to accept that this could have been any other way.

Even though they’re supposed to sweep Yukhei’s house first, three minutes later Jeno is standing in front of a bicycle shop in a decadent, empty street in the suburbs. A quick glance at the buildings around them make Jeno suspect that most houses are deserted, and Jeno notices with mockery that the balcony right over their heads is entangled in spider webs. This wasn’t their destination, but Jeno couldn’t know where Renjun was heading to; he just followed without asking any questions, which in retrospective, it doesn’t come off as a very smart behavior for a superhero.

“What are we doing?” Jeno asks, a bit nervous; because the other Spider-Men don’t know they’re there, so if they’re in danger, they will never find them.

Renjun doesn’t answer, too preoccupied with removing his mask and looking into the shop through the window. Inside there is complete darkness, a darkness that results perturbing, for not even the light from outside penetrates as it should.

Renjun sighs, turns to look at Jeno, and concludes, “Okay, I think it’s time to be sincere.”

Taking a peek at the shop, Jeno admits, “I’m scared.”

He’s not scared because of a ridiculous sinister bike shop, but because Renjun has kept this a secret until now. Jeno’s faith in him isn’t his best trait, he’s aware of that, yet he isn’t expecting Renjun to take advantage of his weakness so shamelessly.

“I didn’t hook up with Yukhei just once,” Renjun admits. Jeno’s heart drops to his stomach, and it must reflect on his semblance, because Renjun’s gaze softens. “It was for a couple of months. That’s why I know where he lives. But that place is just a cover, just like the room he took you to in the fraternity.”

Jeno clings to that thought, to the information he should be concerned about: that Yukhei uses covers to avoid getting caught; instead of thinking about Renjun and Yukhei having an affair for _months_.

However, his mouth moves on its own. “Why did you stop seeing him?”

Renjun shrugs, like it’s not a big deal, but his next words destroy the last of Jeno’s pride, “I met Jaemin.”

This is why one shouldn’t fall for pretty boys, Jeno supposes. They probably slept with all of your exes.

“How does he have so much money to rent several places?”

“That’s a good question.” Which means that Renjun doesn’t know either. Jeno can’t blame him. Renjun has worked on so many projects for so long, the portals, finding other Spider-Men, worrying about being attacked by Morlun, that it’d have been nonsensical to obsess over one of his crushes. Unlike Jeno, Renjun hadn’t known that it was Yukhei who turned him; and he had only begun to suspect about him when he realized that there were more Spider-Men on Earth-616. “The thing is that during the two months we were seeing each other, he stopped by this place once. He was pretty stressed that day, and then when I asked about the shop, he kept giving contradictory answers.”

Jeno nods. If one of his crushes was acting that way – and he’s not accusing Renjun, really – he’d believe that they would either have a man on the side, or that they would be hiding a superhero secret life. Renjun happens to fulfill both requirements.

“So we’re not going to his _house_ in favor of a seemingly abandoned bike shop?” Jeno asks, skeptic.

“Yes,” Renjun says, ignoring Jeno’s criticism. He sticks a mini web around the lock of the door, making the whole shop window tremble, and pulls so hard that the lock undoes within a second. Jeno flinches at the sound of the lock and the doorknob dropping on the floor, and Renjun laughs at his face. “Don’t try to get any bike for free, Ash.”

And then they’re in.

The shop is covered in dust, to the point that every one of their steps invokes a cloud of dust around their legs. Renjun coughs for the first three minutes, then claims that his lungs are habituated to the mess, and that Yukhei was this dirty in other aspects of his life too (Jeno chokes on his own saliva, because: one, what the fuck; two, Renjun knows how distracting it will be for Jeno to think about that in this moment). Once Jeno stops feelings the asphyxiating heat on his cheeks, he dares to remove his mask.

The shop is, indeed, a sort of hideout. It’s easy to figure out because the drawers are empty, there isn’t any material related to biking anywhere except for the bikes themselves, and the cash register is for decoration. It’s just a carcass, and while Jeno can detect Renjun’s frustration building up, he’s more relaxed by the second, because this is an excuse to pull pigtails later and remind Renjun that he should stick to the group plans next time.

“Hey,” Jeno starts, crouching over the cash register to check if it has any secret message, button or hint of why it even exists. “Renjun.”

Jeno’s tone is what must give away his intentions, because Renjun, who is taking a bike down the wall, answers without even looking at him. “Not now, okay?”

Jeno doesn’t obey.

“You can’t drag me away every time you get a bit jealous,” he says, and then he regrets his words one second later, when the silence expands around them, a cloud much more dangerous than the dust.

Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s using the wrong words.

Renjun spins around, an incredulous expression on his face, and repeats, “I _can’t_?”

Jeno has fucked up. Renjun is going to eat him alive, just like Morlun would have done if Renjun hadn’t saved him. It’s just fair, right? Renjun saved his life, so now he can eat Jeno if he wishes to.

“That’s not what I mean,” Jeno assures him, but his statement falls into deaf ears.

Slow but constant, Renjun walks towards him. He steps around the register’s wardrobe, and when he reaches the corner of Jeno’s side, Jeno backtracks like the coward he is. Renjun doesn’t care about his personal space and comfort, since he corners him against the wall, and then Jeno’s heart stop beating altogether. Can the radioactivity do that? Is his spider sense getting stuck, not his heart? He isn’t sure.

But all of a sudden, he’s sure of why there are so many fanfics about villains and superheroes, about why people go crazy over moments of physical closeness between them. Jeno, who was disposed to be the good, noble superhero that saves cats and old ladies for the rest of his life, sees the darkness in Renjun’s eyes and understands that he’d do any bad thing for him, whether Renjun asked or not. The appeal of malice.

“You know, I _can_ ,” Renjun contradicts him, bringing Jeno back to reality. Because yes, they were talking about Donghyuck, not about Jeno being such a big loser that he’d become a villain if Renjun asked. Renjun wouldn’t have to give him much, just a few kisses would do. And when Renjun comes so close that Jeno can feel his breath on his lips, he swears that he might pass out. “That Donghyuck boy is just messing up with me. I’m not saying he doesn’t think you’re attractive, but he’s doing this because he’s into making me mad.”

Jeno blinks at him, the knot in his throat growing bigger and bigger. Renjun isn’t joking; this isn’t funny to him, and perhaps Jeno should look out for Donghyuck’s neck next time he decides to flirt with him. Jeno can make an effort to push him in Jaemin’s direction, no matter how flattering being the center of Donghyuck’s attention is.

“And if he makes me mad enough, we’re going to have serious problems,” Renjun adds. He brings his hand up, taps under Jeno’s chin so that he stops staring at his lips – and damn, Jeno hasn’t been aware of that until now – and he starts looking at his eyes. Despite Jeno’s clear signs of debility, Renjun isn’t amused, and so does he sound very stern when he asks, “So are you sure you want to help him make me mad?”

 _No_ is the right reply, sure. But Jeno… Jeno isn’t thinking about that anymore, and his brain betrays his body. In a mumble, he spurts the most sincere thing he has said today, “God, you’re so hot.”

If Renjun is confused by Jeno’s sudden confession, he doesn’t let it show through. Instead, he caresses the underside of Jeno’s jaw, carefully watching him and his reactions, but never smiling.

“That’s what I thought,” he concludes.

Jeno doesn’t know what gets into him, but before he can process his own movements, he’s leaning down to kiss Renjun. And yes, it could have been a wonderful moment, a wonderful chance, except Renjun pushes him away as soon as he tries to close the distance, a judgmental, disgusted expression on his face.

Jeno should feel hurt; instead, he feels like a kid that is going to throw a fit for not playing with his favorite toy.

“Ew, Jeno,” Renjun says, not caring a tiny bit for his feelings. It’s a first for Jeno to have a crush of his _ew_ at him. Earth-616 must not love his mental well-being that much. “This place is full of dust, we’ll be tasting more dust than lips.”

That sounds like a reasonable excuse not to kiss. It doesn’t mean that Renjun doesn’t want to kiss him, but that he prefers to do it in a more pleasant place. Feeling brave, Jeno decides it’s a good moment to tease Renjun, so he leans forward again with a smile on his lips.

Renjun doesn’t shove him away this time, too smart not to catch on his joke. When Jeno is close enough to feel Renjun’s breath on his own mouth, so close that he believes that Renjun won’t rejec him, Renjun steps back. It happens within a second: Jeno loses his balance, falls forward and on Renjun, and although Renjun holds him in time, both of them crash against the countertop.

And the countertop slides over the floor.

Jeno’s first thought is that this is more proper of a comedy than a superhero story, though at this point he’s starting to suspect his story _is_ a comedy with a sprinkle of superhero powers. The second thought is that this discovery was meant to be: trying to kiss Renjun was a milestone to discover Yukhei’s biggest secret.

At first, Renjun stares at the trapdoor on the floor with his mouth open, and then at Jeno, as if he can’t believe that they found it out because of Jeno’s foolishness.

Yukhei has a secret hideaway. There’s no doubt about it.

 

 

 

 

Superhero stories, Jeno thinks, aren’t supposed to be this complicated.

Perhaps when you’re twenty years into the first release, it’s easy to throw in a bunch of other superheroes. It’s just Jeno’s beginning as a superhero, however, and it’s not fair that there are more superheroes that can steal his spotlight.

And Jeno isn’t talking about Spider-Men. He’s talking about Deadpool.

“We need to call the rest,” Renjun announces, which translates into _hey Jeno, give them a call while I do the cool stuff by myself_.

Jeno obeys only because it’s Renjun who is giving him the orders – and because he’s right, and if Yukhei is Deadpool, they will need the reinforcements. Even though they made sure to give phones to every Spider-Man, Jeno chooses Donghyuck, because on Chenle’s Earth phones are a thing of the past and he can’t even turn a phone on, less alone take a call; and because Mark looks like the type who would never notice his phone is vibrating.

Donhyuck picks it up right away. Renjun walks around the hideaway, and Jeno observes him while he tries to explain what they’ve discovered. Care isn’t a word in Renjun’s dictionary, though, since he throws Yukhei’s stuff all over the place and rummages through his drawers as if he’s going to the answer to the meaning of life there. There’s not much to find anymore, because once they have found out his arsenal of Deadpool suits, it’d be stupid to remain in denial.

Jeno gets it: Renjun dated Yukhei, so it must be frustrating to realize that he was a superhero all along. That he’s Deadpool, on top of that, when they’re aware of the story they should have with each other. It makes sense that he has kissed so many future Spider-Men, or so Jeno guesses: the Deadpool-Spiderman link isn’t a force easy to break.

“They’re on their way,” Jeno informs to no one, since Renjun isn’t actually listening to him.

Renjun doesn’t even show interest in him, and don’t judge Jeno for this, but he needs the attention. Focusing on work is one thing; being completely ignored by the love of your life is a different, unacceptable thing. His offense almost kills Jeno, because when he approaches Renjun from behind, Renjun is pulling a sword out of a drawer, and Jeno swear he foresees his head on the floor for a whole second.

Instead of apologizing, Renjun sends him a sorrowful look.

“We have to catch him,” Renjun mutters. “Why would Deadpool make Spider-Men?”

Jeno has many answers. Because Deadpool is supposed to be into Spider-Man. To some extent. Because maybe Earth-616 Yukhei thought that was his destiny after finding radioactive spiders, which all in all, Jeno would have supposed too if he was in his shoes.

But Jeno doesn’t find the courage to mention it out loud, since it would imply that he thinks that Renjun should have never broken up with Yukhei. It would make a good story for future movies: Spider-Man breaking Deadpool’s heart, and Deadpool assuming that the solution was to make more of them.

“Don’t give me that look,” Renjun reproaches. Jeno’s thoughts reflect on his face, and for once he discovers that silence can be more powerful than words, for Renjun is uncharacteristically nervous at such suggestion. “He didn’t make one to… do whatever you’re thinking about. He made too many of us.”

Jeno feels his tongue act up on its own. “Maybe he wanted a harem.”

If Jeno felt like he was going to be murdered when he stood before Morlun, that’s nothing compared to the glower Renjun shoots at him in that instant. Not to add that he’s holding a sword in his right hand, of course.

“Lee Jeno,” Renjun punctuates, says his name in a way Jeno doesn’t want to hear ever again. “Our lives depend on this bitch and you think it’s time to joke?”

“You look too stressed,” Jeno points out. An excuse that isn’t enough for Renjun, and as he shakes the sword in the air, as to check if it can be used, Jeno explains, “Yukhei might be immortal, but I didn’t get the impression that he was dangerous. Plus I don’t want you to pick a fight with someone that can’t die.”

That statement, for some reason, makes Renjun smirk. Jeno doesn’t have time to feel unsettled, because a dry noise comes from the bike shop, along the bells of the main door ringing, and both Renjun and he sweep into an alert mode.

It has to be Donghyuck, Chenle and Mark, since Jeno called them, but upon sharpening his hearing, Jeno can detect only one pair of shoes crossing the shop. One glance at Renjun tells him that he’s right. Renjun is positioning the sword right towards the trapdoor, and Jeno wants to tell him to calm down, in case he could end up stabbing the wrong person.

But Jeno doesn’t ever get to open his mouth. The trap door opens, and Deadpool, in all his glory, drops down on his feet with a perfect jump.

Jeno might have had his tongue in that mouth, and his hands on that ass, but he feels terrified right away. Yukhei in his suit, with his katanas outstanding from his back and over his shoulders, is a sight that would make anyone shit his pants. Besides, not being able to see Yukhei’s naturally placid eyes is a point for his intimidating presence.

No one moves.

Jeno can make out that Yukhei is surprised, that he doesn’t know what to do. He turns his head from Renjun to Jeno, who aren’t wearing their masks, several times, as though he can’t believe that they know each other. His attention lingers on Renjun’s hold on _his_ sword, and despite how covered Yukhei is, Jeno can detect his tension. Nothing like an ex-boyfriend with a sword to scare someone off.

“Well, this is awkward.” And that’s not Yukhei’s voice, not completely. Perhaps it’s the mask, or perhaps just that he modulates his tone when he’s in his suit. He waves to Jeno, as he says, awkwardly. “Jeno, this is my first boyfriend, Renjun. Renjun, this is my… just Jeno.”

Jeno admits it’s a bit funny, except for Renjun, who doesn’t seem to find the introductions that hilarious. Yukhei must be acquainted with Renjun’s reactions, and right like Jeno predicts, Renjun doesn’t appreciate being made fun of. They had a relationship. Yukhei converted him. And then Yukhei hid the truth from him, which counts as lying.

That’s the reason why, before Jeno can process what’s happening, Yukhei disappears through the trapdoor. And if Yukhei is good at something, that’s escaping.

That’s how the nightmare begins.

 

 

 

 

Renjun isn’t on his right mind.

He bolts out after Yukhei without a second thought, not remembering that they’re not supposed to part ways, that they’re on a dangerous Earth for both of them – for all of them – and that their team was on their way.

Jeno has two options. Actually, no, he has one option, because his whipped self would never dare not to follow Renjun. So he does that, though he trips with the stairs to the trapdoor and he has to use his spider sense to know where to go once he’s outside, for the street is empty of life.

His spider sense doesn’t work, since Renjun and Yukhei aren’t a danger for him, and that’s not a novelty. But Jeno spots a blurred red mass in the distance, prays that it’s Renjun and not just his imagination, and blindly flies there.

It’s frustrating at best, because Renjun is way faster than him and Jeno doesn’t even know where Yukhei is. Renjun is certain of his position, for some reason. His consolation prize is that in the middle of the chase, Chenle, Donghyuck and Mark appear out of nowhere, no questions asked. Jeno realizes that if anyone looks up, they will see five Spider-Men crossing the city and a national lockdown will be put in place, but that’s the last of his concerns, the last of his thoughts as they travel through the city like a web of Spider-Men themselves.

Getting lost is a matter of time. Jeno isn’t fast enough – only Chenle and Renjun are – and when they reach the most intricate part of the city, it’s impossible to keep track of them. With his heart beating against his ribcage, Jeno shoots up to the tallest building to have a better view, but it takes him two seconds to realize that wherever Yukhei has gone to, it’s not in the exterior.

This is, somehow, Jeno’s job. As a superhero, he isn’t supposed to have solutions handed right at him. Sometimes the love of his life is going to disappear with his ex-boyfriend (an ex-boyfriend both of them have hooked up with) and Jeno is going to have no option but think.

Someone should have told him that thinking was part of being a superhero.

Jeno does – tries to do – that. Yukhei had a hideout place under the ground. That’s a very cliché option for a superhero, but it means that he feels safe and that he would, of course, tend to have similar hideouts. Even if the purpose of those hideouts is to serve as traps and Renjun has just jumped into it like a fool.

The first step Jeno takes is jumping off the building, his feet touching the floor as softly as he can (see: pretty bumpy fall). Around him there are abandoned factories, which surely contribute to relax him, but he supposes that an abandoned factory is a great zone to carry out secret projects. Apart from that, this region of the city is foreign to him, because Jeno’s cowardice has always made him avoid the problematic parts of the city. Even now he doesn’t discard the possibility of someone giving him a beating for wearing a ridiculous costume in a bad neighborhood, one never knows with teenagers full of testosterone that want to prove their worth with violence.

The second step is not to panic. Walking into the factories is scary, sure, and running around from one to another is pretty uncool. Jeno would prefer to speed through the whole city looking for Renjun, yet instead he has to peek inside the factories one by one.

When he comes out from the first factory with no results, his instinct drives him to look up. It’s not his Spider sense, but Jeno doesn’t have a name to describe the instinct that pulls him.

On the factory next to him, there is a Spider-Man on the edge of the rooftop. He experiences a sort of dejavu, because the position of his body resembles that which Renjun had when he saved Jeno from Morlun. This Spider-Man, unlike that night, is waiting for him, there’s no doubt about that. The distance doesn’t allow Jeno to recognize them, so he can’t confirm that it’s Renjun despite all the signs pointing to it. (Damn, their suits are too similar, and Jeno might have quitted using glasses thanks to his newly acquired powers, but he still doesn’t see _shit_.)

Much to his luck, the other Spider-Man has him perfectly located, and most important, he doesn’t expect Jeno to take action. With his feet linked to the rooftop, Spider-Man slides down with a web that unites his feet and the edge of the rooftop.

Jeno doesn’t understand what Spider-Man is doing, not at first. He should have jumped to him, but instead he’s moving downwards, with his head down and his feet up. Jeno’s head spins, because deep inside he’s aware of what’s happening. Because Spider-Men’s lives are cyclic, and their stories repeat once and once again: that’s why they’re attracted to Deadpool, and why most of them are created by radioactive spiders among all the possibilities they could have encountered.

And that’s why Renjun is there, reenacting a scene Jeno has watched an embarrassing amount of times in a very specific Spider-Man movie, and why Jeno stays frozen on his spot, accepting his destiny. By the time they’re facing each other, Jeno’s vision is blurry and the ground shifts under his feet. It wouldn’t be very elegant to pass out for a kiss, though.

“Renjun-” Jeno begins, breathless. Renjun’s breath is warm, so warm that he can’t think straight and remember what he was going to say.

The boy scoffs, like Jeno is telling the funniest joke, but he doesn’t retaliate. He pulls his mask up (or down, from Jeno’s perspective) to free his mouth, and cups Jeno’s jaw between his hands. And Jeno won’t ever admit this to himself, but the only thing keeping him on his feet is that grip on his face, for his legs stop responding him and he’d crumble down within a second otherwise.

This is worse than confronting Morlun. Superhero’s weakness: 1; Morlun: 0.

For once, Jeno’s life goes by slowly. There are lips on his lips, and Jeno has kissed a hundred boys – okay, that’s a hyperbole, he has kissed exactly five boys in his whole life – but none of them were Renjun, and none of them have made him feel like he’s about to faint.

There is something that doesn’t fit in his story, though. Jeno doesn’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s not the right time, just like it wasn’t the right time minutes ago in the bike shop. Does Renjun think that they’re going to die and that they should kiss before disappearing? Is Yukhei that big of a threat? And who is Jeno to doubt Renjun’s change of mind, anyhow? He’s not in a place to protest, not when he appreciates the soft lips trapped between his, the way Renjun holds his face and leads him through the most innocent, breath-taking kiss ever.

However, when Renjun moves away, Jeno catches the flash of a smile before he can cover himself with the mask again. Jeno feels his stomach drop, but he swears that it must be his imagination, and he doesn’t have any way to confirm his suspicions, because Renjun doesn’t have time to give explanations. He twirls in the air, shoots a web right through one of the windows of the factory, and launches himself inside.

Jeno can just follow.

 

 

 

 

Jeno is the last one to arrive, which is something to be ashamed of.

If Jisung had joined the mission, Jeno wouldn’t have to go through that moment of judgment, the other Spider-Men delivering frustrated looks towards him. It’s unfair, Jeno wants to retort, he was just busy kissing Renjun.

But Renjun had time to get into the factory, tie Yukhei to a chair with his spider webs, and start a whole interrogatory. Jeno missed all the fun: catching Yukhei, finding the corresponding chair to immobilize him and surrounding him as they were the villains of the story. The factory is pretty decadent, a perfect place to torture a superhero, and Jeno hopes they won’t ever be in the receiving end of this situation. Damn, if he was Yukhei, encircled by a bunch of Spider-Men which he transformed without permission, he would be terrified. But Yukhei isn’t him, and sadly Jeno isn’t Yukhei.

Jeno doesn’t want to break his friends’ delusions, but he knows that Deadpool can easily break the spider webs that are holding him to the chair. He’s a superhero for a reason. Yukhei is letting them play this game, however, and Jeno fears that there’s a not so noble reason behind that.

“You didn’t have to run away,” Renjun is saying, too focused on Yukhei to give Jeno more than a mere once-over as he joins the team.

Jeno doesn’t like this sensation: the sensation of girdling around Yukhei while he’s seemingly helpless. It makes him feel like they’re bullies, and forgive Jeno, but he wants to be a Good Spider-Man who doesn’t kill villains and that fights for peace and justice. The rest of his Spider-Men friends deviate from that delusion, that much he can realize.

“You were swinging a sword, Renjun,” Yukhei protests. He’s not so scary when his face is on the out; he has a pitiful, cute gaze that would melt any human in the world, and Jeno reckons that it’s easier to be mean to Yukhei when he’s Deadpool from head to toe. “I might not die if you skewer me, but it still hurts.”

Yukhei isn’t afraid of them. Jeno wonders if they have noticed. His body is completely loose, not ready to attack, and he replies Renjun with the same passivity he would recite the periodic table of the elements. In fact, Jeno would bet his own ass Yukhei could actually recite the periodic table of elements in this same instant.

Renjun isn’t happy with that. He must have hold a grudge for a long time, and Jeno understands because he would have done it too if he had been a loner Spider-Man for so long. His superhero path isn’t comparable to Renjun’s, since the moment Jeno knew that his life was in danger just for being who he was, he had emotional and physical support. Meanwhile Renjun has been handling the prospect of death by himself all this time.

When he puts it that way, Jeno should hate Yukhei too.

“You’re getting us killed,” Renjun spits at him, grabbing Yukhei’s hair and pulling back. He’s so short compared to Yukhei that, unlike in movies, he doesn’t have to bend down to look at Yukhei’s face from upwards. “Don’t you think that’s enough of a reason to skewer through you?”

Either Yukhei doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he’s the best actor Jeno has ever encountered – and that’s not an easy competition, because Renjun played his innocent waiter role very well too.

“What, I don’t-” he begins, looking up at Renjun in full confusion. “I’d never hurt you.”

Behind Jeno, Donghyuck fakes a cough, as to remind them that they’re not alone. It’s directed to Yukhei in particular, since he behaves as if this was a private conversation with Renjun, though deep inside Jeno suspects that Yukhei doesn’t care about the rest of them. But after the kiss, Jeno can’t be jealous. He’s playing with advantage now.

Donghyuck’s warning works, because Yukhei glances at them, sheepish.

“I mean, unless one of you is heartbroken, but I don’t peg you as the type,” Yukhei corrects himself. “But physically? Why would I want to kill what I’ve created?”

“This is gross,” Mark cuts in, and well, that’s a surprise. Jeno would bet that it’s the most impolite thing Mark is ever going to say. It’s clear that he’s offended, though, because he’s frowning down at Yukhei, arms crossed. “We’re not your property.”

Yukhei lifts his eyebrows. “That’s up for discussion.”

Against their will, Yukhei is right. They don’t belong to him as persons, but they owe him their powers. Despite that, it’s a gray moral zone, because none of them wished to have such powers, so their freedom is stolen property.

And, naturally, no Spider-Man there likes being described as a puppet.

Before the atmosphere worsens, Renjun clicks his tongue and shuts Yukhei up with a glare. “Stop playing. We need answers.”

“ _I_ need answers,” Yukhei retorts. For example, the answer to why a bunch of Spider-Men kidnapped him, other than vengeance. “What’s the threat?”

The silence that follows talks by itself. Jeno can’t help but meet Chenle’s gaze, since he’s the only one that doesn’t look pissed or confused, just interested. Reading Chenle’s eyes gives Jeno enough of a hint to understand what Yukhei means.

“Morlun,” Renjun says, wary, as though the name will invoke the monster in the blink of an eye. Or perhaps as if he fears that they’re revealing information that Yukhei doesn’t and shouldn’t have. He blinks down at Yukhei with a glimpse of innocence that doesn’t seem characteristic of him, and mutters, “Are you telling me you didn’t know Morlun was around?”

 

 

 

 

“All animal-like superheroes went extinct,” is Yukhei’s reasoning, two hours later, when they have abandoned the factory and reunited in his hideout. It’s too small for six people, and not the best place to hide if Morlun tracks them – it only has one exit – but everyone is too emotionally tired to complain. Yukhei sits on a table surrounded by his katanas, cleaning one of them like a normal person would pet their puppy. “So Morlun should have died too. It’s the dilemma of the predator. If they run out of victims, they die too.”

Morlun has been feeding on superheroes that carried an animal essence for so long that he managed to wipe them out from Earth. From all Earths, in fact, and Yukhei’s logic is flawless.

Except it didn’t apply to reality. Morlun is still alive.

“Ecology,” Donghyuck supplies. He’s sitting on a metallic table, even if Yukhei didn’t give him permission to do so, his legs hanging over the floor. “Everything needs a balance.”

“Even superheroes and villains,” Chenle finishes.

Jeno can’t find that balance in their lives, however. Morlun survived for years without food, and yes, it’s true that it might be the reason his army of vampire-like minions is nowhere to be seen, but it’s both amazing and terrifying that Morlun himself didn’t fall with them.

He must be terribly hungry, too, and Jeno knows for a fact that hunger is one of the most negatives forces in humans. He doesn’t want to think how bad the effects can be in an inhuman creature.

“Fuck ecology and balance,” Renjun cuts them off. “We’re killing the predator. If Spider-Men become a plague, then let us be.”

They’re good for the environment, anyway, although Jeno wonders what would happen if they were fifty instead of two Spider-Men in the same world, or five hundred instead of seven in several Earths. Perhaps they would have their own civil war.

The only one who doesn’t agree with that statement is Yukhei, who knits his eyebrows together at Renjun and comments, “You’ve changed a lot.”

“Happens when a legendary villain wants to murder you,” Renjun spews back at him. Jeno observes them in interest, because Yukhei might have lived with a Renjun that wasn’t so harsh, that was sweeter than this, just like the waiter Jeno met at that pink diner. “And since this is your fault, you better use that brain of yours to help us.”

Yukhei lets out an awkward laugh. “Thinking isn’t my forte.”

It’s not modesty, it’s a mere lie. Jeno doesn’t need to scan his hideout to know that calling Yukhei a genius would be an offense: he has weapons and technology that Jeno hasn’t seen or imagined in his entire life. He’s beyond a genius. Chenle is the only one that isn’t impressed at his arsenal, and that alone proves Yukhei’s worth.

Upon the five pair of glowering eyes directed to him, Yukhei sighs in resignation.

“What about closing your Earths to inter-travelling?” he proposes.

Mark shakes his head. “That means we wouldn’t be able to get out either. Imagine if Morlun finds the way to slip in. It would be like closing our own coffin.”

The problem is that they’re not skillful enough to battle against Morlun, so they need a strategy of plain, pitiful avoidance. Jeno isn’t sure Yukhei himself would have a chance, and even if he’s responsible of the danger they have to confront, Jeno wouldn’t dare to force him to fight for them.

God, he shouldn’t have made out with a stranger in a room full of spiders.

“That, and Jeno is too much of a good view to prevent us from visiting him,” Donghyuck adds, cheerful, leaning back on a row of hammers.

Jeno must be getting used to that sort of comments, because he barely blinks at Donghyuck’s insinuation. Renjun pretends he hasn’t even heard him, which is definitely progress, but hurts Jeno’s ego as well.

“Are you constantly in heat?” Mark protests, looking at Donghyuck with a disgusted snarl.

“I’m not a dog.” Donghyuck sets a hand on his chest, solemn, and lies, “And for once I was talking as a friend.”

“What’s the equivalent of being in heat for spiders?” Chenle chirps up.

“Hey!” Renjun shouts, clapping so hard that everyone in the room startles. Jeno understands his indignation, but he can’t help but snicker behind his hand. Renjun sends him a glance that could kill any man. “Can you focus? This is a death or life situation!”

It’s the key word. Death. At least for most of them.

“It’s a perfectly understandable topic in this situation,” Donghyuck refutes, breaking the sudden tension in the atmosphere. He shoots Renjun a smile full of teeth, no good intentions. “Procreating is a normal response to a possible death, gene prevalence and stuff, you know?”

Renjun is astounded for a couple of seconds while he decides if Donghyuck is serious or not. He is, needless to say, because Donghyuck’s jokes are serious.

“Sorry to break it to you,” Renjun snorts in the end. “But neither Jeno nor you can get pregnant.”

Jeno watches them in amusement, aware that Donghyuck has a counterattack ready. Mark looks like he’s going to vomit, and Jeno can’t blame him, because he thinks other people’s sexual lives are gross to hear about too.

“Wait!” Yukhei screams then, before Donghyuck can open his mouth. “Wait, wait, wait.”

The interruption isn’t about their pregnancy chances. Yukhei bolts to the metallic drawer next to Donghyuck and opens it by pulling so hard that the drawer’s screws cry out. Contrary to the grandiloquent revelation Jeno expects, it’s a drawer full of documents. Donghyuck mouths _cuckoo_ without making any noise while Yukhei has his head in the drawer.

And then, gasping for air, Yukhei sentences, “We need a sick Earth.”

“All Earths are sick,” Chenle replies.

“Not sick as in _ecology_.” Yukhei rolls his eyes, as though his last concern is keeping the Earth alive and healthy. He’s Deadpool for a reason, Jeno supposes. Destiny doesn’t choose them randomly, so Yukhei must have a bit of a self-destructive streak in him. “We need a chronically unstable Earth.”

Yukhei could be speaking alien and Jeno would comprehend the same amount of words. He’s not alone in his ignorance, though. He recognizes the interest in Renjun’s expression, the spark of hope. Renjun does understand Yukhei’s words, thus Jeno isn’t so ashamed to ask.

“What’s that?”

“An Earth that has lost its time linearity,” Renjun answers, so fast that Yukhei doesn’t have any chance. Not that he’s attentive to explanations, because he’s rummaging through the documents like a madman. When none of his friends show that they understand the implications of that explanation, Renjun continues, “At first there are small mistakes in the timeline, but if it’s a grave case, time paradoxes invade the timeline to the point it collapses and disappears.”

A time paradox. The same events repeating once and once again, and the persons living them not being aware of such paradox. For example, Jeno could cross the same road, reach the end of the street, and he would reappear in the original point, crossing the road again. He would never be aware of that.

Chenle sounds horrified when he whispers, “And everyone dies?”

“They _disappear_ ,” Renjun corrects him. That counts as dying, in Jeno’s opinion, but who is he to contradict experienced superheroes? “In a time paradox there’s no death, because the concept of beginning and ending doesn’t exist.”

Mark eyes Renjun, unsure. “So we drive Morlun into a chronically unstable Earth, is that it?”

By the time Renjun nods, Yukhei has already grabbed a bunch of documents and is extending them all over the floor. Intrigued, Chenle walks around Yukhei to take a peek, but Mark, Donghyuck and Renjun aren’t paying him any attention. Jeno does, however, because Chenle is smart and Jeno trusts his judgment.

“And we close the portals to that Earth, hoping that he’ll be trapped there long enough for the Earth to collapse with him in it,” Donghyuck concludes.

Easier said than done.

Jeno has never been more grateful that his spider powers allowed him to get rid of his glasses, for he can see what Yukhei’s documents provide from afar. While Renjun has done an extensive research on the different Earths – and the different Spider-Men – his work is nothing compared to the information Yukhei has.

No wonder Yukhei could easily find good candidates to Spider-Men throughout the alternative universes. The positive part of this discovery is that, considering the amount of Earths he has investigated, perhaps Yukhei didn’t choose them just because they were attractive. There must be more handsome guys than them on the hundred Earths Yukhei has visited.

“I’ll find the right Earth for you,” Yukhei assures them. He flicks through his documents, setting the dossiers of the possible Earths apart, and Jeno can’t help but wonder how he doesn’t need to read them: he knows where every document is among his files, what Earth it belongs to, if it’s chronically stable or not. “You have to play cat and mouse.”

“Vampire and spider,” Chenle jokes. He must think that the prospect of playing tag with a villain is a topic to joke about.

Leading Morlun into a certain Earth might not be that hard, for if all of them are together and they open a portal to the Earth Morlun is on, he will take the bait. The problem is making Morlun stay on that Earth, despite noticing that there is a huge mistake in its stability. There is only one way to achieve that. They’ll have to endure on that Earth until the end, while it disappears, and risk leaving the moment before it collapses forever.

Jeno has always thought that his first challenge as a superhero would be a physical fight. Instead, it’ll be a battle against the space-time continuum.

Fun.

 

 

 

 

Believe Jeno, he isn’t talking from experience, but watching your ex-boyfriend make out with another boy is one of the most unpleasant sights one has to deal with.

There must be some karma to that, however, because Renjun has broken two hearts – one in several Earths, and Yukhei’s heart at least on Earth-616 – and it’d be universally unfair if he didn’t have to face a little bump on the road.

Except this is a punishment for all of them.

Jaemin and Jisung, Jisung and Jaemin, haven’t considered that it’d do them good to have some privacy, because they’ve chosen the couch, in the middle of the living room, to have a make-out session. To some extent, Jeno can’t blame them. They discussed that finding Yukhei would take a lot of time, so they must have supposed that they were safe, that they could use Renjun’s house as if it was theirs.

They were wrong.

Their good news are drowned by the scene in front of them as soon as they jump back into their temporal Earth, a silence expanding across the living room like an asphyxiating gas. Jeno avoids looking at Renjun, first because he’s scared of what he could find in his expression, and second because he can physically feel his anger through his spider sense: Renjun is so angry that he’s a Danger.

Besides, it’s easier for Jeno to focus on Jaemin, lazily moving off from on Jisung and stretching his neck to take an uninterested look at the newcomers; and on Jisung, with his lips red, shiny, and dazed eyes that show that he probably doesn’t even remember his own name, just the fact that he was kissing Jaemin one second ago.

“This is a personal offense,” Donghyuck assures, his eyes sending daggers through Jaemin. “How can you choose a noob Spider-Man that looks like he hasn’t kissed anyone in his life and is a fucking nerd over me?”

Whether it’s because of the accurate description or because Jisung comes in touch with reality, with how everyone is staring at them with equally judging stares, his face turns scarlet.

“I’m glad you’re taking it as a personal offense,” Jaemin replies, though he doesn’t sound all that joyful. It’s not that he finds entertaining to reject Donghyuck, it’s just that he doesn’t care, and Donghyuck isn’t used to being surrounded by guys that are interested in other guys that aren’t him.

Before Donghyuck can talk back – which he’s going to do, without a doubt – Renjun lifts his hand and snaps his fingers, silencing both Donghyuck and Jaemin. And the rest of the Spider-Men, for that matter, for Jeno catches Mark fidgeting on his feet as if he would prefer the ground to swallow him to witnessing Renjun’s scolding.

“You were supposed to train him,” Renjun states, so cold and neutral that Jeno feels a weird, urgent fit of nervous laughter bursting in his chest.

Unlike Renjun, Jaemin is unable not to take a fight with Renjun personally. There’s still resentment there, even if that’s not his Renjun, and therefore it doesn’t settle well with him that Renjun is trying to tell him what to do. Especially, if that includes not kissing Jisung.

“You didn’t say _on what_ ,” Jaemin responds. Jeno hears Chenle snicker, stepping back to go unnoticed, but to his bad luck, Renjun’s hearing is infallible. Dangerous. It shouldn’t become a matter of pride and power, they all are superheroes and superheroes have a fragile sense of authority. Upon Renjun’s unfriendly reaction, Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Fine. You’re right. You shouldn’t leave me alone with pretty boys that are easily persuaded into kissing.”

“W-what?” Jisung mutters. He sits up, blinks at Jaemin in a mixture of confusion and embarrassment  - though Jeno doesn’t miss the way his eyes travel to his lips for a split second, and the way Jaemin smiles at it – and realizes what Jaemin means. “I’m not easy.”

Donghyuck snorts. “It must be Jaemin’s power, then.”

Jisung is easy, indeed. But it’s hard not to be easy around Jaemin.

 

 

 

 

“This is shameful,” is Jisung’s protest the next day, when he stands before Jeno with his full suit in place, his mask off to reveal his discomfort.

Jeno agrees that it’s embarrassing to learn to use his powers while having experienced Spider-Men as witnesses, but he can’t pity Jisung that much. Just like him, Jeno has had his fair portion of mishaps, and he has learned that the faster one learns to fuck up and get over the shame of it, the faster one becomes good.

It’s just that Jisung doesn’t function well under pressure. Jeno pats his back, both of them looking down from the rooftop at the row of Spider-Men down there. Five pairs of eyes are set on Jisung, waiting for him to jump and prove that he won’t kill himself in the fall. Jeno is just there to save his ass, because yes, he would likely kill himself if he was left to do the job on his own.

“It’s necessary,” Jeno encourages him. Jisung gives him a pleading look that would have tricked Jeno months ago, before he discovered how the world favors the evil and he should be a cold bitch to balance it off. “We can’t leave you behind while we bait Morlun, so you need to learn to run away. It’s the minimum requirement.”

Jisung isn’t convinced. He peeks down at the team, doubtful, yet with the certainty that he will hurt himself.

“And do all of you have to watch?” he whispers, a rhetorical question that isn’t intended for Jeno to hear.

The real question is if Jaemin has to watch. Jeno pities Jisung, but there’s a certain point in a superhero’s story in which they have to learn that villains are more important than looking cool in front of their crushes. If Jisung has to discover this the hard way, then Jeno will contribute to it.

“You’ll miss us when we’re not watching and you have Morlun on your heels,” Jeno assures him.

His patience is running out, but beyond that, he can feel Renjun’s patience running out too. From that height, Jeno can make him out crossing his arms over his chest, staring up at them. Jeno isn’t disposed to be scolded for being too lenient, so he makes Jisung pay for his own mistakes: he shoves him forward.

Instead of falling off the rooftop, Jisung fights against gravity and loses his balance. Jeno doesn’t even have time to remind him that it’s better to have a clean fall than trip; the fear in Jisung’s eyes as he spins around for help is enough of a proof that Jeno’s words don’t have any effect on him.

Jisung’s scream is taken by the wind, and Jeno prepares his own webs in case he has to jump after him. But he doesn’t have to. There isn’t anything more triggering than a near death, and Jisung may not be in control of his powers, but his spider self registers and responds to danger without his permission.

Jeno can hear Donghyuck’s laughter all the way up when Jisung shoots a web, no intended direction, that clings to the façade of the building in front of them.

Despite closing his eyes not to see how painful the crash is, Jeno’s ears record the noise of Jisung clattering against the façade, followed by a cry of pain.

“You have to flex your knees and arms!” Jeno screams.

Jisung knows that, but it’s too late to follow any advice. When Jeno leans out to check his position, Jisung is hanging from one web and one arm, like a poster about to drop off the wall. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jeno catches Jaemin walking away from the team, and one second later Chenle does too. Jeno prays that Jaemin isn’t about to kill him for pushing Jisung without previous warning.

It doesn’t get worse than that. They’re lucky that Spider-Men hold supernatural strength, for Jisung would have died in a matter of minutes after so many failed jumps. He does feel the pain, however, but it’s proven that animals learn from the mistakes faster if those mistakes imply pain. By the tenth jump, Jisung remembers that he has to flex his knees or he will face plant against the building.

“We could have used a reward system,” Renjun proposes that same night, when Jeno and he sit on the bed after a long day.

In the inner bathroom, Chenle and Mark are taking a shower, and it’s the first time since the mission that Jeno has a private moment with Renjun. Calling it private is an overstatement, of course, because the walls are thin and they can hear Jisung, Jaemin and Donghyuck bickering on their couch-bed, and Chenle is talking about his intestinal problems with Mark inside the shower.

But it’s good enough for Jeno. He can’t ask for more, because having Renjun next to him, even under unfavorable circumstances, still feels like a dream.

Jeno lies back on the bed with a sigh, looking at the ceiling, and says, “Please, don’t say the reward was Jaemin.”

Renjun shifts to glance at him, amused. The reward _is_ Jaemin.

“I always thought that movies in which people risked their lives for a bit of love were stupid,” Renjun continues, enjoying Jeno's dismay.

However, he reaches back to caress Jeno's hair, fingers threading through his hair, and smiles at Jeno's confused eyes. He has the right to be confused, since Renjun is looking at him like Jeno has always wanted him to look at him, with the playfulness of the diner, except they do know each other for real and Renjun's fondness isn't unfounded.

Jeno feels his lungs vibrate as he tries to breathe. A kiss changes things for them, he supposes. It did change them for Jeno, but he wasn't so sure about Renjun, for he's much more discreet with his feelings.

“But it turns out it’s real life,” Renjun finishes, softer, the corners of his eyes crinkling up.

He's not talking about the hypothetical cliché. He's making fun of Jaemin and Jisung.

Doing his best to hide the disappointment in his voice, Jeno complains. “Isn’t that a bit hypocrite of you?”

Renjun's smile vanishes in the split of a second, which is in all honesty scary. Jeno has no idea what's so off about his question, and god, Renjun looked like a dream two seconds ago, so his mood transforming this quick isn’t positive duality.

For once Renjun doesn't look mad though, just wary. “Did you just call me hypocrite?” He blinks down at Jeno. His index finger travels from Jeno's hairline to his nose, and then moves down to his upper lip. He's more distracted than he lets on, so Jeno doesn't feel that threatened just yet. “You’re toeing a dangerous line, Jeno.”

Jeno frowns, though his heart tells him to smile. “You were unprofessional too when you kissed me in the middle of a mission,” he reminds Renjun. In fact, they could have lost track of Yukhei just because Renjun decided that it was the perfect moment to live the critical point of their relationship. “Or does that not count?”

Renjun's silence is the most revealing response he can give to Jeno. Renjun never hesitates when someone attacks him, not even when he's wrong - because if he's not right, he will be once he has convinced the other person.

Jeno's life isn't a puzzle, but a broken clock. And the moment Renjun gives him a blank, yet strangely furious look, the obstacle in its gears flies off and the clock begins to work.

The kiss wasn't the critical point of their relationship. They didn't even talk about it afterwards. They never kissed again.

That's not how superheroes stories are told.

They have to kiss after killing Morlun, or if they're destined to die, right before they try to kill Morlun. Jeno doesn't make the rules, that's just how they are and how the universe tangles people's destinies to fulfill the rules.

Kissing in the middle of their first real mission, no excitement left, almost throwing away the beginning of the third act? Odd. Unlikely. Renjun is a true superhero, and he would never do such a thing. And kissing Renjun should have felt as if Jeno's life was ending, since he would reach his maximum happiness, his reason of being... And don’t mistake Jeno, the kiss was nice, but not an out of body experience.

“I did what?” Renjun confirms in a whisper, lips remaining parted in a silent question afterwards.

Jeno cowers, because damn, he has just called Renjun a hypocrite for no reason. Renjun is just his perfect, flawless, brave counterpart, not an hypocrite.

“I'm sorry, I didn't want to-”

Renjun silences him up by drawing his index finger over his lips again, this time sealing them vertically. Jeno's expression tells the whole story, and Renjun is smart enough to put all the pieces together.

With a terrifying calmness, he promises Jeno, “I’m going to murder Donghyuck.”

 

 

 

 

See, if this was a story about a love triangle, this mess would make sense.

But as Jeno observes Renjun's apartment in shambles – furniture completely destroyed, paintings on the floor, pots broken in pieces, and a huge black spot on the ceiling that no one knows how it appeared – he dares affirm that fighting over him wasn't worth it.

It confirms that Donghyuck is after him only to madden Renjun, however, because he laughs through the whole fight, and every time Renjun traps him, he laughs harder. Renjun isn't that happy. And Jeno isn't either, in consequence, even though it makes him giddy that the kiss is so important for Renjun.

At first, no one interrupts them, mostly because they're scared of getting hurt in the process (except Jaemin, who claims that it's karma and that Renjun deserves to have his romantic interest kissed by a delinquent Spider-Man, so he's not disposed to stop them). Jeno pulls his best puppy eyes on Mark after five minutes of pure chaos – and of ducking behind the kitchen counter for protection – and Mark is too soft to ignore his suffering.

The key is to block Renjun, though he grows even more frustrated when Mark manages to cage him against the floor and Donghyuck sits on the couch, legs crossed and a smug glint in his eyes as he watches the scene.

The tension in the flat is palpable during the whole night, even if Renjun doesn’t talk much and Donghyuck is beyond amused at his attitude. Jeno takes advantage of it when they’re in bed, lying that he’s holding onto Renjun so that he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night and kills Donghyuck. Renjun knows it’s just an excuse to cuddle him, but he either needs the reaffirmation that Jeno isn’t going to ditch him for Donghyuck or he’s too tired to protest.

Regardless of their excuses, Chenle and Mark gag at their physical contact, which Jeno can comprehend, since he wouldn’t like sharing a bed with himself and Renjun either if he was in their shoes. But if there’s something that being whipped brings, it’s the lack of consideration for their friends’ comfort, and Jeno forgets about them when Renjun tucks his head below his arm. It might be a way of indulging Jeno in his belief that he can prevent Renjun from fighting, or just a way of asserting his dominance. Renjun is an expert at that.

However, Renjun is so tired that he falls asleep in a few minutes, and Jeno is left with Chenle whispering stories about his life for the next two hours and Jisung’s snoring travelling from the living room.

“So you kissed Donghyuck,” Jaemin states over breakfast the next morning, only when Jeno, Renjun and he are alone in the kitchen. He brings it up on purpose, Jeno knows that, because this Jaemin isn’t as kind as the one on Earth-616, and he believes that bullying this Renjun instead of his Renjun counts as a revenge too. He draws an angelical smile for Jeno. “How was it?”

Renjun groans, but he’s washing the dishes, so he doesn’t even turn around to glare at Jaemin. He should be grateful that Jaemin isn’t reminding the whole team, but the other boys are outside the apartment, since Chenle insisted that he wanted to spot all the differences between their Earths. If they had stayed, they wouldn’t have let Renjun live up the events from last night; so irked over a simple kiss.

“First of all, he kissed me,” Jeno clarifies. He kissed back, sure, but it was a mistake. “But it wasn't that serious. We didn't even use tongue.”

Jaemin snickers at that, his smile taking a third of his face, and Jeno understands the reason when Renjun grunts, “Could you not give any more details?”

“I don't know, this is pretty funny to me.” Jeno clears his throat, smirking to himself when he catches Renjun flinch at the teasing. He doesn’t intend to torture Renjun this much, because he would hate if Renjun bragged about other boys kissing him, but it’s entertaining to see him frustrated over love topics for once. All his confidence balled up, his pretending techniques disarmed. “When this is over, we'll barely see Donghyuck, so you don't have to worry about the competition. I... on the other hand, we'll go back to the Earth where you dated Yukhei.”

“The same Earth where you hooked up with him,” Renjun points out.

Not that hooking up with Yukhei is hard, or any sort of merit. It has the same value as walking down their street, judging Yukhei’s lack of selectivity.

“No feelings involved. It's different.”

Jeno throws a pleading look Jaemin’s way so that he supports him, but Jaemin shrugs. “Yukhei is Deadpool. In theory, he should be with one of us.”

“He has seven options,” Jeno retorts. “It doesn’t have to be Renjun and me.”

Perhaps because he’s suddenly excluded from the conversation, Renjun spins on his heels and observes them. Their never-ending jealousy talk has turned into Jeno and Jaemin guessing that Yukhei will fall for one of them, despite the interdimensional breach.

“Three options,” Jaemin corrects him. He pats his own chest, proud. “I’m taken, so is Jisung, and you two are insufferable.”

Jeno deliberately ignores the strike. Renjun and he aren’t insufferable. Not yet. They haven’t even entered their honeymoon phase.

“We can ask him about it today,” Jeno proposes, challenges Jaemin. Both of them are aware that Yukhei is still hooked on Renjun, and they won’t have the heart to upset him with such question.

Resigned, Renjun gets rid of his gloves and signals Jeno to take his spot. If it’s a punishment for ignoring his request or not, it doesn’t matter, because Renjun is the leader of their team and they shouldn’t disobey.

“You need to focus,” he mutters, patting Jeno’s lower back as he jumps off the chair. “We’re not hanging out with Yukhei. It’s _business_.”

“Yukhei is a baby at heart, don’t be like that. Lonely Deadpool,” Jaemin half-jokes.

Because it’s not entirely a joke. Deadpool is, in his essence, lonely, always followed by tragedy. Jeno isn’t sure to what extent it’s a good idea to let a tragic character help them.

 

 

 

 

Choosing an Earth to meet up isn’t a mild decision. Renjun discards having the meeting in their safe Earth, because they won’t have anywhere with all these commodities to escape to if Morlun finds them. Earth-616 is still too dangerous to spend long periods of time there, and they want to discuss their plans in peace, not worrying about having to run away.

Yukhei chooses a peculiar Earth. If Jeno’s Earth is overpopulated, this Earth is on the brink of collapsing. Being outside isn’t an option, because the moment they cross the portal, they’re in the middle of the street and surrounded by people. And one would expect to be noticed if they materialize in the middle of a crowded street, but the congestion is so severe that citizens don’t repair on them, too used to bumping on bones and flesh as they walk by.

“I can’t breathe,” Mark whines as soon as they cross the portal.

Jeno can’t either. And his senses are telling him that they’re in the middle of a crossroad, and that they should move, but it’s impossible to move with the sea of people asphyxiating them.

“Are you claustrophobic?” Chenle says, and Jeno can’t tell where he is, just that he’s close.

Jeno looks up to the sky in an attempt to analyze their surroundings, but people from this Earth are strangely tall, and his side view is blocked too.

“How are we supposed to find Yukhei?” Jaemin, next to Jeno, asks.

A valid question that no one can reply. They should have appeared directly in the location they discussed with Yukhei, but portals aren’t always perfect; they’re subject to their creators, and Renjun’s skills aren’t infallible.

Right when Jeno is about to propose that they should travel back and try from the beginning, he feels a hand slapping his thigh. He glances down just to find Renjun with pleading eyes, and confusion hits him so hard that he wonders if he’s dreaming. Renjun doesn’t plead, not with his eyes, not with his words, and Jeno feels an immense joy when he catches on what’s happening.

“Jeno, lift me up,” Renjun mutters, trying not to be heard by the others.

Renjun is too small to see his surroundings; in fact, he can only see waists right now, and Jeno smirks down at him with the triumph of a man that only wins once. When Renjun slaps his thigh again, he doesn’t refrain from being too hard on him, and trust Jeno, you don’t want a Spider-Man to hit you when he’s angry.

That doesn’t stop Jeno from holding Renjun by the waist and pulling him up as dramatically as he can, drawing excessive attention to them. Watching Renjun blush is a rare occurrence, but it’s justified when he’s losing his intimidating aura by the second.

“Better?” Jeno teases him. Renjun sinks his fingers in his shoulders, warning him. “I’m waiting for my thanks.”

Renjun focuses on scanning over their heads, as if ignoring Jeno’s words is going to stop him, though Jeno can tell that he’s still embarrassed.

“That’s enough,” he says after a couple of seconds. “Put me down.”

Jeno smirks up at him. Renjun frowns. “Jeno, I swear to god if you don’t put me down in the next second-”

Torturing him is fun for a while, but not when that implies risking his own neck, so Jeno hurries to bring Renjun down. With the lack of space, Jeno hears Jaemin grunt behind him, and he wholeheartedly agrees with the sentiment. Not because they don’t have much space (Jeno’s heart’s note: Renjun is pressed up against him. Nice) but because he never wanted to have Jaemin so close to him.

Shaking imaginary dust off his legs to hide his shame, Renjun announces, “So, low building on the right. We fly there and then find the correct orientation.”

“Right, what right? I can’t see you,” Chenle protests. Jeno doesn’t even remember where Chenle is.

“God,” Renjun sighs, his left eye twitching because of the stress. “Just stick to the closest person to you and we’ll be a block.”

“He means the closest Spider-Man, not a random person!” Donghyuck adds after a moment of silence.

Chenle sounds sheepish, “Sorry.”

They’re lucky the population in this Earth are used to being accidentally touched, since the lack of space doesn’t allow them to have their personal space, because otherwise Chenle would be in trouble. Jeno holds onto Renjun, and then feels someone’s arms around his waist too, too strong to hide the nervousness – it’s probably Mark, Jeno realizes, because he can’t touch any of them without blushing.

Renjun gets them out of the crowd, though Jeno swears he kicks someone’s head meanwhile, and when they’re up in the air, the block disintegrates and they’re on their own to make it to the designed building. Jeno checks up on Jisung for a moment, fearing that he won’t be able to, even if he’s not the most suitable to lend a hand either. Jisung is capable of doing it himself, yet Jeno discovers Jaemin firing a second web his way, a web that clings to his butt and secures that he won’t fall.

Landing on the building is like a fresh breath of air (metaphorically, because Jeno is certain that the amount of oxygen on this Earth isn’t adequate either), and from there, they can trace the path to the meeting point. It’s not far away, much to Jisung’s relief, but it has other disadvantages.

Jeno groans out loud when he realizes Yukhei chose a public café for them to talk. Perhaps he did it because he thought they would be safer among commoners, but Jeno doesn’t think Morlun would hesitate to attack them and kill a few civilians in the process.

Or perhaps it’s just that Yukhei is, like almost all Deadpools, suicidal by accident or intent.

Inside the café, Yukhei looks like a normal boy, wearing a blue polo shirt and his bangs over his forehead. A normal attractive boy that makes heads turn, actually, but Jeno’s mind tries not to let that fact distract him. To some extent, Jeno feels like they’re a group of friends trying to approach their crush, no matter that none of them have a crush on Yukhei anymore – in theory, as Jaemin said, because at least one of them is supposed to crush on him. Perhaps it’s the newly acquired information, the strong presence of another superhero, what prevents Jeno from being at ease.

“Why did you lead us into this mad world?” Donghyuck protests after they sit around the table, awkward greetings included – because Yukhei is finally facing all the boys he had a fling with, and that’s a notable moment to confront.

Yukhei smiles at Donghyuck, unaware of Donghyuck’s criticism, and bends down to clutch his bag. Instead of answering, he plays with the intrigue of showing them what’s inside his bag, and some of the Spider-Men exchange tense glance. In a matter of seconds Yukhei pulls out seven dossiers from his bag and hands them one by one to each Spider-Man around the table.

“A mad world is perfect for you. Your spider essences will be drowned among so many human essences,” he explains, extending the last dossier for Donghyuck.

Or so they should hope. Donghyuck doesn’t look very convinced, but while he has a staring contest with a bright, smiling Yukhei, Renjun is flipping through the dossier with a frown on his face.

“You planned the whole thing?” he questions, eyes flickering up to Yukhei’s face.

Jeno has to admit that it’s cute how nervous Yukhei gets, either because he’s fishing for approval or because a serious Renjun is a very intimidating Renjun. Renjun must like Jeno for real if he’s capable of ignoring Yukhei’s whipped ass. Unless Yukhei’s anxiety comes from the fact that he’s hiding something.

“It’s a proposal, not a final plan,” Yukhei explains. He bites his lower lip, takes a peek at the dossier in front of Renjun, and adds, “Only if you like it.”

Liking isn’t the best way to describe it, since allowing Morlun to chase after them has immense risks. It’s still a less dangerous idea than trying to fight him: rather than liking the plan, they dislike it a bit less.

“It’s not like this is very complicated, right?” Mark asks, and though he’s just looking for the agreement of his peers, he stares at Yukhei for confirmation. “We have to run and run.”

Yukhei shakes his head, his smile vanishing, but it doesn’t feel condescending.

“It’s not that simple. I traced the path all of you should take so that Morlun can’t use any shortcuts to catch you.” Yukhei flips Mark’s dossier open, finds the page he’s talking about – a crazily detailed map of the city – and points down at Mark’s path. “They’re made for you to have another Spider-Man around if things go wrong too, but not close enough that Morlun can accidentally run into them if he deviates.”

Curious, Jeno looks into his own dossier. He has the same map, but his lined path is blue, and the other six paths are designed all over the map, none of them crossing in any point except in the end. There are even alternative options in case they need to gain more time on that Earth, so Jeno will have to memorize not only his plan, but the others too.

Jeno can’t help but marvel at how fast and precise Yukhei has been with the plan. He studied an unstable Earth in a couple of days, to the point he was able to know every trick of the city and its alleys, and use it to their advantage. Jeno can’t even dream of becoming such a smart superhero.

“And because you can’t just run aimlessly,” Yukhei continues. Which makes sense, really, but Jeno believed that’s what they would do until now that Yukhei is proving how foolish that would be. “Before the Earth collapses you should be together to escape through the breach.”

The breach. Not a breach. Jeno clears his throat, unsure, “Won’t we have a portal for each of us?”

Yukhei glances at him in a way that makes Jeno feel that it was a dumb question. To his relief, he can see the confusion in Donghyuck’s and Jaemin’s eyes as well. (He’s not counting Jisung’s confusion, because Jisung is always confused at everything: theories, boys, his own powers. It’s not a good figure for Jeno to compare himself to).

“Earth-956 is too unstable. Remember the space-time is altered? That’s why creating a portal isn’t as easy as in our worlds,” Yukhei clarifies. “Sure, if you turn out to be alone in the end and the Earth is two seconds away from collapsing, you can try to create a portal, but it might not work while there’s another one open. Space folds when it’s collapsing, just like paper would fold, and it’s harder to bore a hole through one layer of paper than through five. If you try to bore a second hole in a folded piece paper, the paper will likely rip apart.”

Jeno pretends that he’s not terrified. None of them would dare attempt to open a second portal knowing that it could mean that the other Spider-Men would be trapped too. The objective is surviving the mission, not killing the whole team for a desperate last attempt at living. Jeno doesn't want to imagine a situation in which they have to sit and wait for death, aware that any move to save themselves would kill the rest.

“Science, man,” Jisung mutters under his breath.

It should be a moment of solemnity, of reality sinking in, but Renjun isn’t paying attention to their drama, and interrupts their conversation by slamming his dossier on Jaemin’s dossier. Everyone startles, even Yukhei, but Renjun’s face is full of determination as he steals Jaemin’s dossier.

“You and I are exchanging paths,” he announces, not a question, just a fact. An order.

It mustn’t be nice to have such a great plan changed so casually, because Yukhei looks like he has been punched in the face. “Renjun-”

Renjun raises his eyebrows at him, and Yukhei gets silenced just like that. “It’s not up for discussion.”

Jeno doesn’t understand what’s happening, not until he looks down at his own dossier and locates Renjun’s and Jaemin’s initial paths. It all clicks after Jeno’s eyes follow Jaemin’s old line all over the map, tightly connected to Jeno’s, and Jeno feels a rush of heat in his face.

Renjun is exchanging paths with Jaemin to be next to him. To have an eye on him. To take care of him.

And judging the air of puzzlement in the group, only Renjun, Jeno and Yukhei are aware of this. Plus, Jeno has a hunch that Yukhei did it on purpose, because he’s staring at Renjun like he’s the most frustrating person in the world. God, he’s right. Jeno agrees with him.

“If I set up separate paths for you, it’s precisely so that you don’t blow this up by playing the romantic hero,” Yukhei accuses him, for once forgetting how soft he’s on Renjun.

Making Deadpool run out of patience? Bad idea. But making Renjun angry? Terrible idea.

Contrary to what everyone expects, Renjun smirks at him. “I advise you to shut up, Wong.”

Yukhei’s expression darkens. Jeno’s spider sense tingles.

“Don’t call me that.”

Jeno can’t pinpoint what’s so offensive about calling him by his last name. Maybe it’s offensive that Renjun is so cold to him after they dated, but Jeno understands both sides. Renjun doesn’t appreciate Yukhei meddling with his new relationships. Yukhei doesn’t appreciate being treated like he never was part of his life. It’s obvious both of them have a temper, though, and out of the blue Jeno is glad that Yukhei won’t join them in the mission itself.

Probably because Jaemin has experienced Renjun’s temper, he’s the one to let out an awkward laugh and conclude, “I think it’s time for us to, uh, leave. And rest and prepare.” Renjun and Yukhei don’t listen to him. They’re glaring at each other like they wish they could spit fire through their eyes, so Jaemin doesn’t vacillate to grab Renjun by his arm and pull him up.

Jaemin sends Yukhei an apologetic look. “Thank you for helping us. I hope we can meet in the future, for all that means.”

It’s comical at best to watch Jaemin drag Renjun away from the table, leaving their coffees cooling down and abandoned and an uncomfortable aura for the rest of them. Yukhei sighs, either resigned or relieved at Renjun’s absence, and Donghyuck pats his back with cordiality. They should make an anti-Renjun club, Jeno reckons.

“Good luck, guys,” Yukhei wishes them. Jisung nods like a little scared kid, but others don’t seem to believe in luck. “If you get over this, it’s just the beginning of your superhero life.”

If not, it’s the ending.

Donghyuck signals them to leave, and so they do, picking up their dossiers and keeping a silence that reveals more than it should. When Jeno is about to follow Donghyuck, his body retains him for a second, a low whisper in the back of his head telling him that he’s missing out on something important.

His heart speeds up as he turns to look at Yukhei, who meets his eyes like he’s seeing him for the first time. Jeno’s lips act on its own, the question that is eating them bit by bit, even though sometimes there’s not a reason for everything.

“Why did you do it?” he mutters.

Yukhei tilts his head to the side. “Do what?”

“Create us.”

There are many ways Yukhei could approach this topic, but being embarrassed isn’t one of them. Despite how he lured them into a trap with a very immoral result and changed their lives forever, Yukhei doesn’t feel guilty. And Jeno wants to understand. The guilt would torment him every day if he was in Yukhei’s shoes, so if Yukhei can live without any worries, it’s because he believes he didn’t do anything wrong.

“Spider-Man and Deadpool,” Yukhei starts, his gaze seizing Jeno up and down. “We’re just meant to be.”

Just like Renjun is supposed to fall out of love with Jaemin and hurt him in every universe, and how he’s supposed to fall for Jeno afterwards. Their free will isn’t total, and they’re not capable of shaping their own stories. It was different before, when Jeno ignored that he wasn't in control of his own life, that he can change his future but there are events that will prevail anyhow, untouched, immortal.

Jeno whispers, “But it didn’t have to be us. And you chose us. Me.”

Yukhei shrugs, but after Jeno’s veiled accusation, he’s visibly troubled. As if he wants to help him, give him the answers he needs, but it doesn't depend on him. Yukhei isn't the fountain of wisdom Jeno is looking for.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Yukhei admits, a sigh falling off his lips. “I guess it’s destiny, if that exists, that pulls us together in all universes, so when I became Deadpool… I felt like there was something missing in my life. Someone. I had the wits, the strength, the immortality, so I shouldn’t have felt that I lacked something, right? When I investigated I realized that maybe I needed a Spider-Man.”

Jeno ponders over it. He glances at the café’s door, just to catch Donghyuck observing them through the glass, disapproving. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that Jeno is asking dangerous questions, about mysteries that shouldn’t be solved, and Donghyuck is too smart to not guess his intention. Still, Donghyuck doesn’t walk back into the café to stop him. Behind him, Jaemin and Renjun are having a heated conversation, which gives Jeno enough time to pry further.

“If our plan goes well, we’ll be back to Earth-616 with you,” Jeno says, almost to himself, as a sudden realization that Yukhei is right. In the end, he shares an Earth with two of the Spider-Men he created, and their life threads are entangled whether they like it or not. “Two Spider-Men and one Deadpool.”

Yukhei analyzes him for a second, as to figure out if Jeno is making fun of him. Jeno isn’t. And Yukhei, upon assuming that he’s being invited into a group that should reject him, smiles at him. It’s not a sinister smile, or an entertained smile; it’s a smile full of innocence and hope. Yukhei must be the weirdest Deadpool among all the timelines.

“I don’t know why I thought it had to be romantic. That’s obviously not working.” The corners of his lips quirk up, with more joy than bitterness, but still with a trace of the latter. Jeno has the urge to remind him that it’s not romantic with Renjun anymore, and that it won’t be with Jeno, but that he created other Spider-Men. And that considering how fast they appeared, even if it was Yukhei’s doing this time, the universe might throw a new bunch of Spider-Men at them. Yukhei’s attention shifts to his bag, his fingers zipping it close with a single move, as he whispers, “It’s destiny, Jeno. It just worked through my actions, but I don’t think I had a choice. You ran into me because you didn’t have a choice either.”

 

 

 

 

That night is the point of no return.

Jeno has watched enough superhero movies to feel the shift in the atmosphere, the subtle nervousness and the hints of desperation – of doubt, of _do we really have to do this?_ If he was to use a comparison, and let it be a nerdy comparison, he would say it feels like Harry Potter walking into the Forbidden Forest to let Voldemort kill him.

Wait, wrong universe.

But Jeno sees the signs everywhere. Donghyuck is subdued, not in the mood to joke around and bully them; Jisung holds Jaemin’s hand under the blanket when they’re in the couch, thinking that no one will notice; Jeno catches Mark leaving goodbye messages in his phone for his parents, though he hasn’t counted on how he will retrieve the phone to his Earth (inter-travelling texting doesn’t exist. Yet). And Chenle, who would usually brighten them up with his chatter, gives up on it just fifteen minutes into the dinner.

On his side, Jeno doesn’t know how to feel. Renjun is still mad over his fight with Yukhei, and Jeno discovers that rather than being violent, he’s just terribly upset over it. It’s the first time Jeno recognizes something akin to sadness in his eyes. And he doesn’t comprehend what the real issue underneath that fight is, but he wants to. Jeno is willing to learn, listen and validate Renjun’s feelings, yet he doesn’t have the privacy or the guts to push Renjun’s buttons.

When Renjun is the first one to go sleep, Mark rotates on the couch and sends Jeno a demanding glance. There’s no other way to describe it: it’s demanding. Fix this. Fix him, it says. Jeno doesn’t have magical powers, he has spider powers, so he can’t make miracles happen. But he’s sure that someone like Mark, who is permanently a good kid, could become a monster when angry, and he’s not going to stay to find that out.

Much to his surprise, when he reaches the bedroom and knocks on the door, no one answers. For a moment Jeno supposes that he doesn’t need permission to enter, because right now that’s a bedroom that four of them share, but his instinct tells him a different story. He pushes the door open, takes a look inside, and his hearts halts immediately.

This happens in their sort of stories too. A superhero that escapes through his bedroom’s window right before the ending. Except that it’s usually because his parents don’t allow him to go out, not because he’s hiding away from his other six teammates.

Jeno breathes deeply in an attempt to control the drops of panic entering his system. Renjun wouldn’t abandon them, and Jeno wouldn’t dare even consider that possibility. He must have needed some time alone, a peace that is impossible to achieve in a house full of young boys. If only Jeno was a better listener, someone that Renjun would have thought he could rely on, he wouldn’t have reached this point.

Telling the others that Renjun has left isn’t a good idea. It would scare them, and truth to be told, they’re already scared enough.

Jeno _thinks_. He closes the door after himself, hoping that the guys will assume that they shouldn’t bother them for a while, and makes a decision in the split of a second. Thinking too much is counterproductive, and once he has set his feet on the window’s sill, it’s too late for any form of hesitation to stop him. Renjun’s flat is on the third floor, so it’s not a high jump for a Spider-Man, and Jeno doesn’t bother to wear his suit first.

Renjun can’t have gone too far, or that’s what Jeno wishes to believe. The night is deep, the streets are mostly empty since it’s a weekday, and the silence is overwhelming. Jeno wanders at first, with the awful realization that he doesn’t know Renjun enough to guess where he would escape to for peace. It’s probably something he shouldn’t know, that belongs to Renjun only.

Except Jeno knows. It’s a little map inside his head in which he has to connect all the dots, every detail he knows about Renjun, about himself, and about their Spider-Men traits. The place flashes before his eyelids, his brain functioning faster than his conscience, and Jeno feels like he could transport himself there.

The diner. Not the diner itself, but the little park full of Madonna lilies that is in front of the diner. Jeno, from his preferred spot, has always had a perfect view of it, and can imagine why Renjun would feel drawn to it as well. Their story began in the diner, though their separate stories began earlier than that, and all superheroes must go to the beginning when facing their ending.

It takes Jeno less than a minute to reach the diner, and once he finds himself in the middle of the street, he realizes that he’s in his pajamas. Not that it matters much now. Renjun, sitting on one of the benches of the park with his head down, is wearing his yellow pajamas as well. His bedroom shoes, even. Jeno doesn’t know why he thought Renjun would have changed into his suit, but the lack of it hits Jeno in the wrong places. It makes him want to laugh, not because it’s funny, but because it’s adorable, and Jeno hasn’t experienced so much fondness towards anyone before. Unless puppies count, but they don’t. That’s a different category of that competition.

Observing Renjun alone brings the realization that, just like Jeno, he’s just a boy. A boy that has been Spider-Man for a longer time, but that had to teach himself about the new world he was in and accept that it would be his life from then on. Jeno can’t blame him for seeking Jeno’s company when he found out that there was a pull between them, and even less when he found out that Jeno had spider powers too. Call it destiny, or just the way it has to be.

The park is empty, so Jeno’s steps resonate and the noise of the leaves cracking under his feet alert Renjun with enough time. Renjun doesn’t lift his head to look at him, but he knows that it’s Jeno, and Jeno knows that Renjun can sense him.

Jeno sits on the bench with him, brushing their thighs touch to warn Renjun of his presence a second time. It’d be weird to keep the distance right now considering they cuddle each other to sleep, and Jeno doesn’t want him to think that he has to be embarrassed for running away. Jeno isn’t afraid of Renjun’s feelings, whether they’re positive or negative, whether they include him or not.

“Don’t say it,” is what Renjun mutters as soon as Jeno’s leg brushes against him.

But Jeno has to. That’s the reason he’s here, to tell Renjun what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. In their team, only Donghyuck would do so, but he would be harsh about it. It’s Jeno’s task now, as someone that cares about Renjun, to do this the correct way.

“Yukhei was right,” Jeno says. The knot in his throat pulsates. “You’re wrong.”

Deep within, Renjun is conscious of that. Self-conscious, too. No matter how much they want to protect each other, prioritizing that over everyone else’s safety and the outcome of their mission is irresponsible. Feelings aren’t supposed to be responsible, Jeno agrees with that. And if he knows that Renjun is in danger, of course he will leave his path as well, but they can’t be predisposed to it.

Renjun’s shoulders slump. He’s not surrendering, though. When he meets eyes with Jeno, it’s easy to tell his emotions apart. “I don’t care, don’t you get it?” he asks Jeno. On his thigh, his hand becomes a small fist, and he sounds weaker as he adds, “This whole mission doesn’t have any meaning to me if you die.”

Jeno’s stomach tumbles down, his blood being drawn away from his face completely. Whatever this means, the urge to vomit, the nervousness, Jeno doesn’t appreciate it. Renjun isn’t a dream, and this isn’t a fantastic story that will have its ending credits and then they will go back home, happy and satisfied. If one of them dies, it will be real. And it will be forever.

“Renjun-” Jeno whispers.

But he doesn’t know what to say. Jeno doesn’t feel that wise now that Renjun is opening his heart for him; if anything, it’s overpowering, and Jeno feels like a little kid being kissed for the first time. Clumsy, excited, scared.

Not expecting a reaction, Renjun merely adds, “There are things you ignore about Morlun.”

Jeno has never been an expert, anyhow, so he can’t contradict him. Yet Renjun isn’t talking about his regular ignorance, otherwise he wouldn’t mention it now, on this night, with the upcoming fight on the horizon.

“Tell me, then,” Jeno prompts him. He’s aware that if Renjun has been hiding something from him, it’s for his own good, but it’s obvious that the weight of that responsibility is becoming unbearable as they approach the end of all this. To undone Renjun’s fist, Jeno slips his hand into Renjun’s, dissolving the tension of his fingers. Jeno assures him, “I’m not a kid, I deserve to know what I’ll be facing.”

Perhaps because Renjun knows the truth, he doesn’t believe Jeno’s words. Perhaps he doesn’t want to believe them, so that they don’t have to go through this, but Jeno knows that whatever it is, it’s torturing him. And he’s going to share it.

Renjun whispers, very low, “He will chase only you.”

Jeno doesn’t understand. He blinks at Renjun, bends forward to make out the words better, but his brain receives the same words, the same sentence even if Jeno tries to discover different meanings. There’s no room for mistakes.

Morlun will go after him, only him? There’s nothing special about him that distinguishes him from the other Spider-Man. He has the same essence, the same powers – underdeveloped compared to most of his peers.

Jeno doesn’t feel scared, not yet. Renjun wouldn’t lie to him, however, and less to tell such a terrible lie.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he touched you that night outside the diner, before I could catch you,” Renjun answers, not missing a beat. It’s easier to spit the truth without thinking twice. Jeno doesn’t remember that night that well, but he reckons that Morlun could have touched him. In fact, he thought he had been caught until he realized that Renjun was flying with him across the city. “And once Morlun touches one of us, he can track us forever, no matter where we go.”

Even though Jeno has many questions, he’s speechless. The revelation is scary, and at last he senses adrenaline shooting through his body, preparing him for the battle. It all makes sense: Renjun has the right to be terrified. Before, for all of them, it was a matter of luck. If they got chosen by Morlun to be followed, it was bad luck. Renjun has always known that it wouldn’t happen, that he and the others wouldn’t be in danger once they went into Earth-956. Jeno has never had an option, just like Yukhei told him.

“When we’re on Earth-956, he’ll go after you because he can smell your essence.” Renjun tightens his hand, anxious, and Jeno presses back to calm him down. He looks up at Jeno, and as if he was begging for it, he mutters, “That’s why I want to be close to you.”

Jeno melts. It’s impossible not to. Renjun is kind of crazy, but damn if Jeno doesn’t love his sweet madness. He can comprehend his agony too, because Jeno would never abandon Renjun to his own luck if they switched positions. That’s the reason it terrifies Jeno that Renjun wants to sacrifice anything for him: because that’s what he intends to do. Jeno sees it in his eyes, in the irony of the realms of their realities bringing them together just for this, in how Renjun hints that all this happened – their link, their feelings, their destiny – because Renjun was meant to save Jeno’s life from the beginning, no matter what that implies for himself.

Jeno shakes his head, but Renjun doesn’t falter. “Renjun, don’t come to the rescue,” he pleads. “We have our own paths so that the plan works.”

Except that the plan was designed with the presumption that Morlun’s choice would be random. It won’t be.

The smile Renjun draws is void of happiness. It’s sad, resigned, and strangely full of affection. When he brings up his hand to cup Jeno’s cheek, Jeno feels a shiver travelling down his whole body. The world shuts down around them, darkness looming as if the world could blink and cover them with its eyelids. Jeno stares into Renjun’s eyes, feels his touch, smells lavender and cotton from his pajamas, and knows that it’s now or never. If time could stop on this Earth, Jeno would stop it now.

“If I have to go back to Earth-616 alone, I’m not going back,” Renjun says, his eyelashes fluttering to push away the wetness of his eyes.

 _I don’t know if we’ll live_ , that’s what Renjun told him in the beginning. _We_. Jeno should have suspected it.

Jeno hears his own heartbeat in his ears. Now he knows what was holding Renjun back all this time: fear. Fear of building them just to be destroyed right away, and Jeno would tell him that it’s too late, because it is, because Jeno is in too deep, and Renjun might pretend that he’s not, but he is as well.

But instead Jeno tells him what Renjun needs to hear, “You won’t be alone.”

And Renjun kisses him.  

 

 

 

 

Renjun is meant to be Jeno’s story.

Not the romantic interest in his story, a co-protagonist that fights by his side, not his mentor. Renjun is the whole story, and realization dwells upon Jeno when Renjun presses their lips together, the seal that finishes a story.

It makes sense, all of a sudden, why superheroes are so stupid. Jeno surely feels like the stupidest boy in the world when Renjun’s lips land on his, sweet and warm in a cold and uncaring night, because he would die a thousand times in a thousand alternative universes as long as he got this chance. Renjun’s fingers caress over his jaw to guide him, hesitation trembling in his fingertips, almost as if he fears that Jeno will pull away, and Jeno sets his hand on them, securing Renjun’s hold on him. Kissing Renjun isn’t like kissing any other boy. Jeno burns from his little toe to the hairs of his fringe, every fiber of his body responding to Renjun’s tongue with a frightening ease. It’s so easy it has to be destiny; and if it isn’t, Jeno is going to keep this boy forever whether the universe likes his idea or not, and that should count as destiny too, even if it’s forced destiny. He couldn’t choose falling in love with Renjun, but he’s choosing to keep him with him forever.

A kiss so that Jeno stays alive. Jeno isn’t a man who break deals.

 

 

 

 

In the morning, it takes Donghyuck only one glance at them to know.

“Fools,” Donghyuck accuses them as soon as Renjun and Jeno step into the living room, messy hair and giant eyebags. They’re the last ones to show up, and in the farthest corner, Jisung is already changing into his Spider-Man suit.  Donghyuck furrows his eyebrows at them, offended. “Don’t fall in love before a life or death mission.”

Jeno would have mind space to be amazed at Donghyuck’s intuition if his head wasn’t full of memories of a make-out session at the park, or alternatively, full of the possibilities of dying in a few hours. Neither Renjun nor he feel guilty for loafing around in bed until Chenle and Mark left the bedroom, and even though it’s evident that they didn’t waste any second to gossip with Jaemin, Jisung and Donghyuck, they don’t care.

“Mind your own business, will you?” Renjun shoots at him, unbothered. And then, raising his eyebrows at Jisung’s struggle to insert his arms into the suit, he points out, “It’s too early to wear your suit, Jisung.”

Jisung has the decency to blush. The image of a guy wandering around the house with his Spider-Man suit on while everyone is sporting their pajamas is ridiculous at best.

“I’m not used to it,” he defends himself. Jaemin, from the couch, looks at him like people look at babies that are trying to talk for the first time, except Jeno would swear that Jaemin wants to eat his mouth instead. “It’s like when you buy new shoes. I have to wear them around the house first to be comfortable.”

Mark makes a disgusted noise. “You wear your shoes inside?”

“You’re a finicky prince,” Donghyuck retorts, which is surprising, because he’s siding with Jisung, but not so surprising, because he’s just doing so to tease someone else. He reaches out for Mark’s arm and rubs him as if he’s passing him the worst diseases of the history of humankind. Mark lets out a high pitched whine, and Donghyuck’s _darkens_ with joy. “A little bit of dirt won’t harm you.”

Jeno has learned a lesson from being around Donghyuck: it’s better not to join his fights. Mark probably knows that at this point too, but he’s physically incapable of stopping himself, and a small teasing moment from Donghyuck grows into an argument that lasts half an hour.

No one minds them that much. Jaemin proposes Jisung to go out to train and improve what Jisung has been taught during the last days, which is just an excuse to have their own goodbye, and Jeno thinks they deserve their own too. Chenle sits with Mark and Donghyuck and they make future plans, promise to visit each other, and Chenle assures Donghyuck that he will lend him technology from his Earth. Despite the tension, they’re sure that this is only a slowdown in their story – and it is, because they won’t be the ones chased by Morlun.

Jeno can’t make any plans with them, so he stays silent, hurdled in the corner of the couch with Renjun on his lap. Renjun goes over the plan with him at least twenty times, the dossiers on their legs, detail by detail, whispering in a low tone the small modifications that only the two of them know. Jeno wishes they could share it with the rest of the team, but it’s not smart. By allowing Renjun to aid him Jeno is carrying more responsibilities than he would like to, so he’s not going to implicate anyone else. Jisung, Jaemin, Chenle, Mark and Donghyuck will have to follow their own path and wait with the portal open, and leave if Renjun and Jeno don’t arrive in time. They will be okay, and that’s what pushes Jeno to be a liar.

As nightfall approaches, Jisung and Jaemin return home, and they try to have a small dinner together, since they can’t function without energy. Most of them are too nervous to eat, and Jisung pukes twenty minutes after the dinner, but Renjun doesn’t let them slope off.

After the dinner they don’t talk much, the usual chatter of the house dying off after nine o’clock. Jeno is the fastest one to change into his Spider-Man suit, finally his, since Renjun fetched it off from Earth-616 for him, and stands by the door with a knot both in his stomach and in his heart.

It’s just a coincidence that Renjun is the second to arrive, and Renjun is too smart not to sense Jeno’s nervousness. God, even if Jeno didn’t show it, Renjun would able to intuit it. Jeno would have to be a psychopath to be calm in a moment like this.

Renjun’s hands do the trick. They roam around his neck, down his chest, and when Jeno sends him a demure smile, Renjun hooks his fingers in Jeno’s mask and pulls it down to cover his whole face. Renjun doesn’t do the same with himself, however, and Jeno feels that Renjun is _making_ him. Once the mask is on full display, Jeno can’t be Jeno anymore, just Spider-Man.

“I know you’re ready,” Renjun assures him. That’s on his faith, because not even Jeno knows if he’s ready, so how would Renjun be so certain? “Morlun found our Earth because of you, though I had been Spider-Man for a long time.”

Jeno isn’t following his logic. “How is that a merit?” he asks in a jeering tone, because it sounds like Renjun is blaming him for the whole accident.

“He found you because your essence is too strong.” Renjun smiles, condescending. But in that condescendence, his pupils shine with a strange glint of pride. “Which is because you’re a strong, powerful Spider-Man, but you haven’t developed enough yet. If someone can do this, it’s you.”

Any other day of his life, Jeno would have deemed a pep talk laughable. But that day isn’t today. Renjun stares at him with complete trust, even if there’s a subtle trembling in his voice, speaks from his heart, and Jeno believes him. He can do this, as long as Renjun is there with him. He wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Renjun.

In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Jeno squeezes Renjun’s small hands in his, and jokes, “I have a feeling you want to punch yourself after saying that.”

“This is going to be fun,” Donghyuck announces, entering the hall with determined steps, ready to destroy a dozen villains at the same time. Oh, his damn grenades, how handy they would be now. Renjun steps back, kicked out of their moment, and pretends that Donghyuck hasn’t interrupted them. On his part, Donghyuck analyzes Jeno in his new (not new, but new for Donghyuck) suit, appreciating the change. “Want some motivation, babe?”

Renjun lifts his hand, palm directed at Donghyuck’s face, to warn that he’s about to be hit with some spider webs if he doesn’t shut up. “Back off, Donghyuck.”

“Always so egoist,” Donghyuck mutters, looking away. “It’s not healthy.”

Renjun shrugs, but he doesn’t move away from Jeno in case Donghyuck decides to attack. “I’m not trying to live for long.”

It’s just another joke, one of those that only Donghyuck and Renjun find hilarious, yet in that exact moment the other Spider-Men are walking into the hall like a pride. While Jaemin just scoffs, used to that sort of humor, Chenle and Jisung look outright sad.

“Oh my god, can you not say that _right now_?” Mark protests.

“It won’t change anything.” Renjun spins around, and marks the position they should be at to cross the portal at the same time.

It could be a random choice, but it isn’t. They will wait for Morlun in a common beginning zone, but on different rooftops, so the time that it will take them to jump there is important. So is how they will cross the portal. Morlun might appear any moment, and they can’t have any doubts, any second of hesitation.

“Hold hands,” Renjun orders next.

That’s not necessary, but all of them do. Jeno notices, one second later, that he was already holding Renjun’s hand, though he can’t remember when that happened. Jaemin takes his other hand, and Jeno responds with the same strength, the same neediness. When all of them are tied by their hands, it feels different, like there is only one Spider-Man in the room, not seven. Renjun clicks the portal opener, and as one Spider-Man, they cross it.

 

 

 

 

Earth-956 is collapsing.

Jeno didn’t have the chance to imagine how it would be like to see the space-time continuum collapse, and if he had given a thought, he would have never gotten it right.

It’s terrifying.

When Jeno stands on the rooftop of his assigned building, he looks down at the ground and watches it curve beneath his feet. It doesn’t make him lose his balance, because his feet are curved too. The moment they enter Earth-956, they’re part of it, with all the consequences of it.

Jeno shoots a web to the ground, equally curious and scared, and checks how every fiber of his web is curved too, despite the tension that links it to the ground. The air, his own lungs, every molecule in his body are bending too, as if the earth was flat and someone was folding it between their fingers. A piece of paper, all of it, the whole reality. Yukhei has a talent for descriptions.

Across the space between the buildings, Jeno stares at Renjun. Renjun is staring back at him, and even though his face is covered by the suit, Jeno doesn’t need to see his expression to know that he’s scared too. He’s not scared for himself. Jeno won’t let him perish in this reality, as if Renjun had never existed, no matter if Renjun insisted that he wouldn’t go back without him. It’s not a choice.

And then Jeno looks at the sky, and realizes there’s no such thing. He doesn’t have words to explain, to describe how a world without a sky looks like. There’s no sky, and that’s all his mind understands.

Waiting for Morlun, with adrenaline running through his veins and the certainty of what he will face, is the worst part of it. Jeno wants to _move_ , otherwise he’s a rabbit in the exit of his den, head out to get eaten. He has to stay put, however, because he’s indeed the bait of this mission, and he has accepted that he could be eaten anyway.

In all honesty, Jeno doesn’t remember Morlun that well. Perhaps because he was drunk the night he encountered him, perhaps because comics and books’ representations interfere with his memories so strongly that it distorts them. Perhaps because Morlun has different images of himself, though that would be new information that Jeno never found out.

Jeno _feels_ him first. His spider sense activates, a tight rope straining all his muscles until Jeno is sure that he could jump from building to building without his webs. He spins faster than ever, goosebumps growing in the back of his neck, and all Jeno registers, when he spots Morlun on his rooftop, is that he’s three times Jeno’s size.

What are superheroes supposed to do in this moment? Isn’t the moment to have a talk with the villain? To expose the reasons they’re against each other, to waste time and make Morlun lose that way, as if he was a dumb inexperienced new villain that didn’t wipe Jeno’s entire race once in the past?

Jeno’s story is very much like a superhero story, but not this time. Morlun is here to eat him, to feed himself after years of starving, not to have a redeeming talk with him. And yet Jeno is petrified, observing Morlun’s figure in front of him, well aware that this is his natural and only predator. He’s not a villain. He’s what nature put in the world to balance out his presence. The food chain.

Morlun steps forward. Jeno doesn’t move.

“Run!” Renjun screams.

That’s Jeno’s only mission: to run. No matter how surrealistic this moment feels, how Jeno’s mind is certain that he will wake up from the nightmare any moment, it’s still real. And he will still die if he doesn’t escape.

Renjun’s voice sets him on. Jeno doesn’t have time to remember which way he has to go, but the point of interiorizing the path was exactly this: his mind is racing, and his body is _thinking_. His hands remember where to shoot the web, his feet remember how to land, though Jeno can’t help but do it awkwardly – dangerously. The first jump isn’t perfect: he slides off the building like Jisung would have done, too nervous to focus, and he has to detour a bit to gain height.

The key is not to look back. Renjun made it very clear: looking back at a villain is like having vertigo and looking down from the highest bridge of the city. It petrifies you. Jeno follows the advice; first because he trusts Renjun, and second because he does have a bit of vertigo, which mixed up with his fear leaves him the only option of staring up. Always up, in a world without a sky to guide him.

The first thing that Jeno registers is that Renjun stays _too_ close. And that’s not Renjun’s fault, not really. Jeno is being clumsy, and so Renjun is worried, because he could fall any moment and Morlun would kill him in a matter of milliseconds. And god, Jeno doesn’t want him close. It means Morlun could decide that he prefers Renjun out of the blue, who might not have enough of a strong essence to overpower Jeno’s, but Morlun could see him as the foolish Spider-Man who will willingly sacrifice himself to save Jeno.

That’s exactly what Renjun is.

Jeno doesn’t know how much _food_ Morlun needs. Renjun might be enough.

“Renjun, get away!” Jeno shouts, twirling around enough to find him in the middle of a jump. The angle allows him to see that Morlun isn’t behind him, not on any of the rooftops. Jeno isn’t stupid, however: Morlun isn’t giving up on him, just stalking him on ground, using his speed instead of jumping after him. Morlun doesn’t have to see Jeno to feel his essence. “Go to your path!”

Renjun doesn’t obey, because he’s not used to taking orders. And Jeno has to thank him one second later, when his brain directs him to the next building, a small shop to the left, while his body leads to the façade of an apartment building. He shoots two different webs in opposite directions, confused by his head and his body at the same time, and doesn’t understand what’s going on as he spins in the air like a dead weight.

It’s a free fall for a second. Then there’s a web around his waist, and there’s no need for Jeno to wonder who is rescuing him. It’s a dejavu, beginning and ending in a loop, but that’s what a time dilemma provokes. Events repeat. This Earth is collapsing. If they’re not careful, they will entangle in a time loop and die.

It takes Jeno two seconds to stand on his own, and when he focuses on his surroundings, he barely can recognize anything. He wouldn’t be able to follow the plan, not from this point, not-

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Renjun shouts at him, holding him by the shoulders so that Jeno looks at him.

It’s odd. Jeno knew that Renjun was the one who had caught him, and yet when Renjun touches him, Jeno realizes that he had forgotten that. He thought, for a second, that he was alone.

“I don’t know. I think it’s this Earth,” Jeno mutters. But they should be moving, right? Morlun is chasing them, or isn’t he? “I can’t remember-”

Renjun curses under his breath, and even if Jeno can’t see his eyes, he senses his fright through the shaking fingers on his shoulders. “The space-time loop is affecting your memory,” Renjun mutters, voice strained and forced.

No one warned him that it was a possibility. It doesn’t sound crazy, however, because a time loop involves everything and everyone, his neurons included.

Jeno blinks. It’s hard to recall his own name, or why he’s so in love with Renjun, or why they’re on an Earth that isn’t safe. “What?” Jeno whispers.

Before Renjun can even process that Jeno is out of his mind, Jeno is getting shoved off the rooftop.

“The blue one is next!” Renjun screams, and then flies off.

Jeno holds onto those words until he spots a blue building a hundred meters away. His spider sense tells him the reason Renjun has pushed him so fast: Morlun is close. If they stay put for a few seconds, Morlun catches up.

The plan is failing. Jeno’s feet land on the blue building, and then he scans the scenery around him, a red figure flying off past him. He needs the directions, otherwise he will detour and will lose sight of Renjun; and even worse, he will never reach the final meeting point.

With his spider sense tingling and the adrenaline of death blocking his muscles, Jeno makes an effort to crouch down. His whole body bends under the pressure of the collapsing universe, but he needs to wait for Morlun. The longer he waits, the farther Renjun will have gone, and therefore Jeno won’t have to worry about him getting on the way. Sure, he could travel back, but considering that Jeno doesn’t remember the path, Renjun won’t find him.

Jeno delays his departure. Morlun gets closer. The blue building is small, so Morlun is either climbing it up or taking the stairs; whatever his choice is, Jeno can feel him, like one would feel a cloud of smoke choking him second by second.

What if his destiny is to die? Crossing paths with a heartbroken Yukhei that needed a new Spider-Man, getting found by Morlun while the rest of the Spider-Men were safe, losing his memory in the middle of the mission, unlike the others… Perhaps it’s a sign and Jeno is helplessly fighting the unavoidable.

The second time Jeno faces Morlun, who perches on the edge of the rooftop and jumps on it, Jeno is not as scared. Morlun is imposing, magnificent in a terrifying way, but where Jeno saw danger – Morlun’s desperation for food, the great amount of years being alone, his whole family of animal-vampires being killed by hunger – he sees weakness.

Morlun is hungry. And when someone is hungry, they can’t think straight.

Jeno stands, legs trembling before Morlun’s presence, with the realization that this is a cycle. Morlun isn’t just a natural predator, it’s an exterminating predator. He messes up with the ecosystem, the balance, and if Jeno has to disappear with him on Earth-956, he will.

When Jeno doesn’t run away, Morlun’s steps grow slower. His black, inquisitive eyes are stuck on Jeno, but it’s evident that he suspects that this is a trap. It should have been, if they had thought themselves powerful enough to beat Morlun; the reality is that this is just Jeno and his suicide mission.

“You’ll run out of food,” Jeno hears himself say, much to his own surprise.

A predator doesn’t care about the future. They care about surviving for the time being.

“That’s what I thought too,” Morlun replies. But Morlun doesn’t talk to him like any other villain would do. He talks as if Jeno is ephemeral, meaningless, and that breaks Jeno’s schemes. He knows that there’s a reason he was chosen. “And then you appeared.”

Jeno isn’t sure what this is about, but he’s sure that escaping is the wrong solution.

His inactivity confuses Morlun. Jeno’s heart speeds up, thinking about how Renjun might come back at any moment, at how he’s letting this on the hands of destiny just to prove a point – that if he doesn’t die, it’s because he’s not destined to. And yet Morlun is too hungry to let his chance go, and so he closes the distance between them, his lips snarling over his teeth and his hands reaching out for Jeno.

When Morlun’s hand fists the front of Jeno’s Spider-Man suit, Jeno closes his eyes. Time loops. He’s outside the diner again, drunk and lost, pitying himself and laughing within at how a fake Spider-Man is playing hero to save a real hero – the fetus of a real hero, anyway.

But because it’s written, Morlun never manages to attack him.

It’s not Renjun this time, as Jeno has expected. Renjun trusted him enough to leave him behind, and he might be flying back in desperation, but he’s not in time. It’s funny that Jeno couldn’t recognize Renjun the first time he saved him, and now he can recognize that it’s not _him_. The hands that hold him don’t do it with the same delicacy. The way this Spider-Man moves through the city is slightly different; harsher, careless, and although precise, it’s a raw precision, as if it had been self-taught.

For once on Earth-956, Jeno doesn’t get dropped on a rooftop. The other Spider-Man liberates him from his clutch, and Jeno can’t differentiate anything because of the speed for a few seconds, yet he senses the grass molding against his back.

Jeno lies in the middle of a park, arms and legs extended and his eyes finding the non-existing sky over him, and he says one name, “Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck comes into view, hovering over him with a frown that Jeno can distinguish even through his suit, and instead of answering to his name, he spits, “What the fuck are you doing?” He sets one foot on Jeno’s chest, which Jeno wants to point out, it’s not advantageous if they’re on the run, but Donghyuck cares more about his own rage than about their security. “I knew Renjun and you were planning something stupid behind our backs.”

“Sorry,” Jeno breathes out.

Donghyuck doesn’t forgive him. Jeno knows that if they get alive out of this, the only way to achieve his forgiveness will be through kisses.

“I’m going to kick your ass when this ends,” Donghyuck announces, proud, chin up.

Some people are afraid Jeno will die, and other people want to kill him for being a fool. There’s no in between.

“Can you let me stand up?” Jeno pleads. Donghyuck crushes his chest harder, forming a smile under his mask. “What do you want?”

“Promise that you’ll follow me,” Donghyuck commands, tone so demanding that he doesn’t leave any other option. “Your brain is the size of a nut right now. Typical pretty boy stuff.”

Jeno sighs. “Offensive, but fair.”

 

 

 

 

There are many ways to flatter a superhero, but there is a specific way that works like a miracle on them.

Jeno supposes that as time passes by, it becomes harder to be flustered at compliments, but he has the certainty that when it comes to Renjun, he will never get used to it. Renjun could insult him and Jeno would fawn over it, so actual gestures of affection are out of the chart, are impossible to measure.

That’s why Jeno’s heart skips a beat – or two, considering how fast his heart beats – when he catches a glimpse of Renjun’s figure dancing through the city. Coming back for him, to rescue him. Yes, too late, but he is. It should be a blow to Renjun’s pride that Donghyuck rescued Jeno in the most vital, final mission, but Jeno vows to get into trouble a thousand times so that Renjun can help him and compensate for this one.

Donghyuck isn’t disposed to halt, Jeno notices, to waste a few seconds to talk to Renjun. He does, anyhow, because Renjun directs a web to his back at least three times to demand attention, explanations, or revenge. Jeno loses count, because Renjun can be both very impatient and very insistent, and because Donghyuck keeps pulling him so that Jeno doesn’t indulge his crush.

There’s no escape from Renjun, however. When Donghyuck and Jeno are crossing an empty, narrow street with his feet on the ground, Renjun skids laterally on the slant of the street. Obviously not out of nowhere, but so sudden that it seems to be that way.

“Donghyuck,” Renjun breathes once he gains ground over them. His eyes inspect Jeno from head to toe for a second to assure that he’s not hurt, and Jeno opens his mouth to hurry them up, but then Renjun takes his mask off. That changes the game. There is terror on his expression, honest terror, and that steals any words or thoughts Jeno had on his mind. “Why did you leave your path?”

Not even in the middle of a mission Donghyuck shows mercy. He lifts his index finger and points at Renjun as if he intends to gawk his eyes out, as if he’s two seconds away from doing so. It’s almost touching that he can become so aggressive for seeing Jeno in danger.

“You don’t ask the questions now,” Donghyuck grunts. And really, Jeno appreciates that someone else cares so much about him that they would be this angry at another teammate, but Donghyuck ignores the power of Renjun's pitiful eyes, and so he sighs in resignation as soon as Renjun shows a bit of his desperation. “I had a hunch. Lovebirds always have tragic endings because of love.”

Renjun shakes his head, too nervous to laugh or make fun of that statement. Otherwise he would have pointed out that Donghyuck is worried about them, two whole adults that theoretically can take care of themselves (See: they can't).

Ignoring Donghyuck's jab and warning, Renjun squeezes his shoulder and tilts his head to point at Jeno. “Take him to the portal,” he whispers. It's not a question, but it's not an order either. Jeno would call it a deal between Donghyuck and Renjun, one which he's not part of. A strange camaraderie between two persons that won’t ever agree on anything ever again. “I’ll be one step behind.”

Jeno narrows his eyes at them, the urge of protesting on the tip of his tongue. Renjun intends to serve as the last shield. Staying behind implies that Morlun would have to go over him to reach Jeno, and that wasn't in their plans – not in the plans Jeno and he made last night.

But Donghyuck nods, and as if he can read Jeno's mind, he sends a glower his way that kills all of his reproaching. The plan is changing because Jeno isn’t fit to hold all those responsibilities on his back, that’s very much clear. Just minutes ago he thought that letting Morlun haul him was the solution to this mess.

Renjun doesn't bother wearing his mask again. It's not worth the pain. He's last, so he either makes it and Morlun dies, or he doesn't make it and his identity ceases to be important.

Before Renjun can part, Donghyuck calls with a seriousness that is nothing but a rare occurrence, "Renjun."

“Yes?” Renjun looks back, eyebrows raised.

Donghyuck extends his hand. Jeno feels his whole world drop down.

Their bodies have accustomed to this Earth, because they're part of it, and even their minds bend with the universe; but their minds have been wired to stable Earths for twenty years, so when Donghyuck shows them his hand, they can perfectly see how his palm is folded in two.

Donghyuck smiles at them, because only Donghyuck would find this situation amazing.

“We have fifty-five seconds left,” he announces, punctuating every word.

Jeno wishes they could say goodbye. Though, to be honest, saying goodbye is a pure bad luck attractor. Donghyuck doesn’t allow him to, dragging him by the waist, and don’t judge Jeno, but he thinks he’s getting used to be carried around the city by other Spider-Men.

“Be fast,” Donghyuck concludes.

Renjun flies.

 

 

 

 

The portal, like Earth-956, is dying too.

The final meeting point is the statue of Lockjaw, a giant bulldog whose real representation has cooler powers than all of them – and to be honest, there isn’t anything better than a dog being a superhero, in Jeno’s opinion.

Jisung, Chenle, Jaemin and Mark are right below the statue, forming a cord with their hands. They could have crossed the portal, or at least three of them just to have the unluckiest one guard the portal, but they haven’t. Jeno wants to scold them, but if he was on their shoes, he wouldn’t have abandoned Earth-956 without the team either.

The scenery freezes Jeno’s blood, however. When Donghyuck lands in front of them and Jeno stumbles forward for balance, he looks at them and takes in that this is his team. It’s not temporary. Chenle loves his own Earth, but for that same reason he will try to bring them with him every time it’s possible. Though Jaemin might pretend he hates them, it’s clear that he’s going to invade Jisung’s Earth to the point it will be annoying, and that he will torture Renjun if he has the chance. Jisung will need serious lessons from all of them; and Mark… Mark is just too adorable. Jeno doesn’t even need to list the reasons why Donghyuck won’t let them cut contact later.

Jeno can vouch that seven Spider-Men won’t be good for the environment, but anyone on their right mind would prefer Spider-Men over humans, so if they have to destroy their own Earths, then let it be.

Upon joining them, Jeno has many regrets. He has to face an Earth that is collapsing, buildings and houses and the ground hovering over them, threatening to squash them, and worst of it, he has to wait for Renjun.

The closer he is, the closer Morlun is. His spider sense perceives Morlun, but not Renjun, since Renjun isn’t a danger, and that’s the frustrating part of it. Renjun is still the fastest among them, but Jeno can’t help but doubt. His memory isn’t the only one that could fail. Donghyuck, next to him, notices his nervousness – a different sort of nervousness compared to what the others are experiencing, because Jeno’s holds guilt and responsibility for anything that could happen to Renjun.

Donghyuck offers him his hand. Jeno accepts it without hesitation. As soon as he touches Donghyuck, he understands why all of them are holding hands. Jeno can feel them too. It’s likely that they’re not supposed to be around each other, that the different versions from every Earth shouldn’t get in contact, just like they shouldn’t encounter their own replicas, but it feels perfect when they’re together. It’s too late to change that.

Donghyuck smirks at him, but he doesn’t intend to be mean. He’s amazed too, not only at their connections but at how Jeno is terrified of their own power together. Jeno can’t even imagine how big it will grow if Renjun touches them.

“Fifteen seconds,” Donghyuck whispers.

Jaemin turns his head to look at them. In his hand, the device for the portal shines like a star. Jeno shakes his head, his fingers slipping down Donghyuck’s hand with the intention of breaking the chain. Donghyuck squeezes harder to keep him in place, aware of what he’s about to do.

“He’s coming,” Jeno states them, but he’s not sure of it either.

Renjun is coming, however.

Jeno looks up at the red spot jumping from house to house, just for a moment before disappearing into the maze. The ground shakes under them, and Jeno can’t tell if it’s because the Earth is extinguishing or because that’s how his spider sense warns him from Morlun’s proximity.

Jeno promised to himself that he would wait until the last second, but he can’t force his friends to do the same.

 “Five,” Donghyuck mutters. The world around them rumbles. “Four, three-”

When Renjun enters the square, his panic is evident. He sticks to the window of a shop that crumbles down under the pressure of his web, and Jeno realizes that although Renjun is on the other side of the square, he’s over them due to the angle of the Earth bending. He’s too far away. Without his mask on, Jeno can recognize the desperate look Renjun throws at him. Renjun is conscious that they’re going to lose everything they had.

Jeno shouldn’t, but he tries to shake Donghyuck’s grip on him, and when he doesn’t manage to, he chooses to let his feelings take the best of him. He tows the team with him. He runs forward, the Earth so slanted that it’s like running inside a hamster ball. Donghyuck screams something at him, trying to retain him, and Jisung just screams, likely because Jeno is ruining this for all them.

Jeno doesn’t care. It’s the stupid heroism of a superhero. It’s because he loves Renjun.

And he doesn’t regret it, because Renjun reads his movements and shoots a web that sticks directly to his palm. It’s faster than running, faster than anything else, but they barely have any time left for this.

The click of the portal opening resounds in Jeno’s ears, and as a blinding darkness engulfs them, a darkness that brings nothingness, Jeno feels Renjun’s fingers brushing against his. Then, it’s over.

 

 

 

 

Jeno doesn’t let go.

It smells like Renjun’s apartment. His blood beats against his eardrums, and he holds onto the body that rests in his arms, harder and harder until he can’t breathe.

He doesn’t know for how long he stays in that position, perhaps a few seconds, perhaps a whole minute, it doesn’t matter much. Time has dilated and the adrenaline in his body slows his own thoughts, his capacity to reason, to light up his boldness and face the result of his mistakes.

Becoming a ball on the floor after a mission isn’t the most superhero-like thing to do. He should get up, check that Morlun didn’t cross the portal with them, cry, or celebrate, or say a funny line that would make his team laugh. But Jeno doesn’t talk, and though his ears are blocked, he’s certain none of his friends have the heart to chatter either. Not after everything that has happened.

But his superhero story was never supposed to be that cliché, he understands it now.

“I can’t trust any of you!” Mark’s voice blooms, so loud that Jeno feels a tickling sensation on his neck due to the vibration. Jeno can’t help but startle, finally detaching himself from the hug, but he doesn’t even have time to lament his moment of peace being broken before Mark continues, “We almost got killed! All of us!”

 _Correction_ : Jeno almost kills all of them.

Jeno listens to his screaming as if he’s living inside a bubble. The boy in his arms brushes a thumb over Jeno’s cheekbone, over his mask, his lips hinting a small smirk that makes fun of Jeno’s confusion. When Renjun answers Mark’s rant, he doesn’t take his eyes off Jeno either. Jeno likes that. He’s going to stare at Renjun for the next fifty years just to make sure that he’s alive.

“Technically, it’s not dying. It’s disappearing,” Renjun claims, finally surrendering to one of his sincere smiles.

It’s sort of ridiculous, Jeno supposes, that they’re hugging on the floor while the rest of the Spider-Men have managed to stand up by now. Jeno doesn’t have any need to let go of Renjun. If he does, he might think that he’s not real, just a figment of his imagination. Having him in his arms allows him to confirm that Renjun is real, that he’s in this living room in the flesh and that Jeno won’t wake up from this dream – or nightmare – at any moment.

Mark walks around the room like a tiger in a cage, throws his mask aside (it stays hanging off a houseplant, which humors Jeno) and points at Renjun, “Fuck you, Huang Renjun.”

Jeno would love to say that there’s tension in the air, that Mark’s anger, never shown before, is a big shock to all of them. Yet as soon as Mark says the magical words, all Spider-Men in the living room make equally cheering, jeering noises. It reminds Jeno of high school fights, except Renjun openly laughs and Mark looks like he has just put his feet into a pod.

“I knew he had to explode at some point,” Jaemin points, his chest inflated with pride.

Mark doesn’t relent. Jeno thinks he had to explode sooner or later too, that it sounds like a superhero arch that should belong to him. Hopefully it won’t wind up pushing him to being a bad hero.

“You brought us together just to save your boyfriend’s ass,” Mark accuses. Accusing isn’t the right word, however, because that’s reality.

Jeno doesn’t consider it a big deal now that they’re safe, though he doesn’t know for how long that will last if Mark keeps looking at them like they committed a crime. Plus, Renjun doesn’t seem to be very interested in denying that Jeno is his boyfriend. Probably risking their lives to save each other counts as a confession.

Expressionless, Renjun stares at Mark. “I’ve been told I’m quite intense in relationships,” he admits, and then a frown appears in his face. “Maybe I should look into it.”

Jeno hopes he doesn’t. He quite appreciates the attention.

“Don’t you guys realize I’m the true hero?” Donghyuck chirps up then, and as Jeno takes a peek at his face, he realizes he’s just as disoriented.

Calling him the true hero would be an exaggeration, but Jeno owes him one of his lives at least. It will be okay as long as Renjun doesn’t have that information; deep inside Jeno is sure that Donghyuck will ask for a favor that will rile Renjun up.

“No one asked,” Chenle replies. Donghyuck’s eyes are struck with both astonishment and offense. “Should we tell Yukhei we’re okay?”

That’s the last of Jeno’s worries, and apparently it’s the last for others too. Renjun isn’t listening to their quarrelling anymore, too focused on pulling Jeno’s mask off, impatient hands to check that it’s really Jeno under the suit. It’s liberating to get rid of the mask, and that is an odd thought for Jeno, because he has always felt safe and powerful when he’s Spider-Man.

It’s a new realization: having powers will bring grief to his life sometimes, anxiety, worries, but the moment he jumps out of his suit, he will have a normal life to rely on. Jeno gazes at Renjun and knows that this is the face he’s going to see after many missions, and knows that Renjun is going to be there for both sides of his life.

“First of all,” Donghyuck grumbles, twirling around to inspect every one of them. “We’ve just beaten our main villain, aren’t you aware of that? And all of you are acting like we came back from an arcade, an amusement park or I don’t know, something along those lines. These two,” Donghyuck waves to Renjun and Jeno, “acting like we don’t exist. Jisung looks like he’s going to cry.” Jeno glances at Jisung, and yes, he has always been so transparent that it’s easy to tell that he’s sad this is over, for all that it implies.  “Mark wants to kill Renjun even if he can’t even hurt a fly, and Chenle is thinking about _Yukhei_. Yukhei, out all of people.”

No one answers at first. They all stare at Donghyuck so intensely that he pulls an uncomfortable face.

“Chenle must have good memories of Yukhei. Don’t you?” Jaemin retorts with a smile full of teeth.

Donghyuck is disgusted, which in all truth, Jeno thought he would never witness. It must be that the hook-up jokes are only funny if it’s him telling them, not receiving them.

“Honestly, what the fuck,” he protests. None of them are interested in giving him his _true hero_ redeeming, and upon that realization, Donghyuck slams his hand on the wall, not remembering that he has spider strength and that he will have to pay for that new hole in the wall. Then he whines, “I can’t wait to go back to my Earth.”

 

 

 

No one wants to go back to their Earth.

Next morning, as all of them awkwardly sit on the couch, Jeno can only think that he knew this would happen. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the signs: they all are Spider-Men, they all are alone in their respective Earths because of it, and they all went through a life changing mission.

God, Morlun is dead. It’s over. And now Jeno wants Renjun for him, wants to breathe the air of this apartment on Earth-616 without fearing that Donghyuck will open the door in any instant and will find Jeno with his hands on Renjun’s ass.

They should fuck off to their respective Earths.

“Is anyone going to say something?” Jaemin proposes, leaning back on the couch and pushing his legs apart. Next to him, Jisung tries to take the least space possible, too scared to tell Jaemin that he’s manspreading and bothering him. “Because, not to be a party pooper, I haven’t attended college in a long time.”

Chenle scoffs, and then points at Jisung with his chin. “That’s rich coming from the guy that spent the last two hours making out with that one in the bathroom.”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “We weren’t only making out, I was talking him into getting a tattoo.”

“I think I’m not going to miss any of you,” Mark supplies.

Donghyuck narrows his eyes at him, “Maybe you’ll miss Yukhei instead.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, oh,” Jaemin sing-songs. He clutches his chest, smiles at Donghyuck as if the boy was gifting him a million dollars, and says, “I love this game. I want to bet about this with you.”

Jeno swears that this is a conversation they shouldn't be having, even less should they bet about it. They can't condition their future with a betting game, unless that's what the destiny has prepared for them.

Still, Jeno doesn't believe that betting who Yukhei is going to fall in love in with is convenient. Plus Donghyuck is in the game, no matter how much he claims that his crush on Jeno should be respected, and he has no right to waste money betting on Mark or Chenle.

"Bring it on," Donghyuck challenges, very sure of himself.

Before they can set up their own betting house there and spend the next four hours occupying their territory, Renjun snaps his fingers and growls, "Shut up and stop. I have no interest in who is going to hook up with Yukhei."

"Don't be so possesive," Donghyuck teases him, throwing a mischievous glance at Jeno to check his reaction.

Jeno shrugs. Renjun is his. He's not worried.

"Anyway," Renjun begins, though the way he smiles at Jeno's smug indifference doesn't go unnoticed. He sets his hand on Donghyuck's cheek and pushes his face away. "Who wants to leave first? I'll start thinking you all adore me if you insist on staying here."

"You're so full of yourself," Mark points out. It's important that he's showing resistance against Renjun's leadership, because rather than doing it because he's still angry at him, it's because he's learning bad habits from the rest. (Note: from Donghyuck). "This isn't your Earth either. Why don't you leave first?"

At such proposition, Renjun tilts his head in interest. Then he swings to stare at Jeno, licks his upper lip, and replies, "You know what?" He stands up, much to everyone's befuddlement, and Jeno almost laugh at the immediate regret that paints Mark's face. He doesn't want Renjun to leave either. Renjun, however, doesn't care that much, nor does he feel that dramatic about this temporary goodbye, so he smiles down at Jeno and extends his hand towards him, offering the help. "Jeno."

Jeno makes the biggest effort in his entire life not to let his lips form a pout. To keep his honor intact, he shouldn't pout at Renjun in front of the other Spider-Men, even if they know how whipped he is.

"What, we're leaving first?" Jeno laments, voice becoming smaller with every word.

It's nonsensical that there's a strange pressure in his chest at the idea of leaving first. He's going to see his friends again, perhaps more often than he would like to, so there's no reason for him to be upset over it. But Jeno still is. He has attachment problems, after all.

"Jeno," Renjun repeats, raising his eyebrows in both amusement and in a secret message that only they can comprehend. "We're leaving _together_."

Jeno takes his hand.

And well, he's not good at goodbyes, but he's determined to tell his friends at least a nice see you later. It just so happens that Renjun is worse than him. That, or he's burnt out after dealing with so many Spider-Men for so long, because he doesn't intend to go through farewells.

The moment Jeno holds his hand, Renjun activates the portal before the incredulity of the whole team, and pulls his boyfriend inside with him.

Earth-616 appears before Jeno's eyes. The same apartment, the same couch, but with a different touch. It doesn't smell of Jaemin's cologne or of Chenle's expensive fabric softener. There aren't extra pillows on the couch and a bunch of wrinkled blankets thrown around.

And most important-

“Have you noticed?” Renjun asks him, his eyes sincere and innocent, his lips naughty.

Jeno promised that he was going to look at him for the next hundred years, and there isn't a better moment to start than now. With Renjun's figure next to him, their hands entangled, no one's absence can weigh enough to sadden him.

“What?” Jeno asks, just to indulge Renjun.

Renjun smirks at him. The ground doesn't bend underneath Jeno's feet, because this is Earth-616, because their timeline is stable, but it feels like it does. No one can convince Jeno that Renjun is incapable of giving him vertigo just with a smile. Jeno’s _body_ proves otherwise as he watches the apartment slant like a rollercoaster.

This is the first time they're alone. Alone, with no perspective of having company in a while.

Renjun tiptoes, closing the distance between them until Jeno can feel his breath on his lips. He gazes at Jeno's lips without shame, flickers his attention back to Jeno's eyes, and then whispers, very low, “The silence."

That's not going to last long.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/renjucas)   
>  [Curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/berryboys)   
> 


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